You’re presenting remote data visualizations to your team. How can you make sure they’re effective?

1 Know your audience

Before you design and present your data visualizations, you need to understand who your audience is, what their goals and expectations are, and how they prefer to receive information. This will help you tailor your visualizations to their needs, interests, and level of expertise. For example, if your audience is mainly technical, you might want to use more detailed and interactive visualizations, while if your audience is mainly non-technical, you might want to use more simple and explanatory visualizations.

3 Plan your structure

Organizing your data visualizations with a good structure can help guide your audience through your presentation. You should plan your structure in advance to ensure it follows a clear and logical flow. A common structure for data visualization presentations is to start with an introduction, providing yourself, the topic, and the main question or problem. Then you should give an overview, providing some background and context for your data and visualizations. Next comes the analysis, where you show and explain the visualizations, highlighting key findings, patterns, and insights. After that, you should conclude by summarizing your main points, answering the question or problem, and providing recommendations or actions. Lastly, you should invite questions and feedback from your audience.

4 Practice your delivery

Your delivery can have a major impact on how well your audience comprehends and engages with your data visualizations. To ensure that your presentation is clear, confident, and concise, it is important to practice your delivery beforehand. Some useful tips for improving your delivery include using a good microphone and camera, speaking slowly and clearly without jargon or acronyms, employing transitions and signposts to link your visualizations and sections, using gestures and eye contact to emphasize points and demonstrate enthusiasm, and preparing for any potential questions or challenges.

5 Follow up with your audience

Your presentation doesn't end when you finish your data visualizations. To ensure your audience has access to your visualizations, understands your message, and takes action on your recommendations, it’s important to follow up. You could send a thank you note and summary of the presentation, share any supporting materials such as code, data, or reports, ask for feedback and suggestions for improvement, and track and measure the impact and outcomes of the presentation.