Painting a picture with data storytelling

Once upon a time…No, just kidding, this is not that kind of a story, but it has the almost same characteristics. Conveying a story is an art form and conveying a story based on data is right up there. With the accelerated way data moves, we often fall into the numbers frenzy and forget that there is always a story behind it.?

Data has various ways to be interpreted, and how it’s delivered defines its value and understanding of it. What’s important is the narrative. Context, insight, and interpretation - that’s what makes data valuable. And creating that narrative has become an invaluable skill in business analytics.

So what is data storytelling? It’s the process of explaining and conveying data analytics through understandable terms, based on which business decisions can be made. Its focus is on creating value from data to provide the full picture. Data storytelling is a way of driving insights from large and sometimes overwhelming volumes of data. Its role is to diminish complexity and deliver or outline important information. A data storyteller is a bridge between data and decision-makers who might not have the skills to interpret data.?

But data storytelling isn’t just about explaining data in easy-to-understand “words”. It’s also about creating a story with direct data and visualizations. Telling it in a clear and engaging way is an added bonus on top of simplifying analytics.?

Elements every story needs to have

Data storytelling explains the “why” based on the “what”. This story is composed of elements the same as any other story: characters, setting, conflict, and resolution. These elements serve as guidance in creating the final explanation.?

Characters - This answers the question of who this data affects and who are the stakeholders. There should always be a character the audience can relate to. See their goals and how issues or problems affect them. If you understand the user or the audience and their background, you can far easily connect with the whole purpose and intent of the analyzed data.?

Setting - Settings are the environment and situation where data influences the characters. It’s the time when data will affect and correlate to characters.?

Conflict - This is where you describe the root cause of the issue or conflict. Here the “what” is explained and why it has a significant influence on the story. It shows data describing the problem and it serves as a way to connect with the audience. The “why” is also explained here. Why is data showing a negative or positive impact? Why did something happen? What was the catalyst of the issue?

Resolution - Show your solution and base it on data. Use data insights to outline a solution to the problem and wrap it up as a happy ending. Even when there was no conflict, use this to recommend upgrades to current practices. You need to show what can be gained by using data insights to provide additional value.?

Use visualizations to enhance your storytelling

What’s a story without some visuals?! People perceive visual representations better than just words or numbers. They can remember things easier if they can see them in interactive graphs or visualizations. Imagine having a spreadsheet of sales numbers that have varied for a certain product. If you look just at those values, you won’t perceive if they are growing or declining. With a graph, you can easily see the trend going up or down.?

With visualizations, you can draw conclusions faster and thus make decisions the same way. Data storytellers know that with great visualizations you can create a bigger impact.?

Why is data storytelling important?

Storytelling has always been a way of recording past and current events. It served as a way to convey news, happening, and memories, And, it’s not that different from data interpretation. What happened can be clearly seen through data, but explaining it so it sticks, that’s a different story.?

With dashboards, tables, values, files, and graphs, yes we can see something happening, but giving it narrative or context is what brings that data to life. Storytelling is what connects values to the source and solutions of an issue. But it doesn’t have to be a negative effect to convey, it can be also a positive situation that we want to keep and can be supported by data.?

Storytelling is all about engagement. Listing numbers left and right won’t make them memorable. You have to stimulate the recipients so what you’re telling is making its way to their long-term memory. By evoking an emotional response, storytellers can far easily stimulate their findings into actions. Here, soft and hard skills are integral. It’s about taking something complex and turning it into something so easy to understand and relate to.?

So, if you deal with data, immerse yourself in the art of storytelling. Through reports, visualizations, and stories you can change how your audience consumes information. It adds a human touch to a rather strict feel of numbers. And it turns numbers into art.