Book Review: Storytelling with Data

I recently completed reading the best visualization book — STORYTELLING WITH DATA. The book is authored by Cole Nussbaumer Knaflic. In this article, I am going to talk about my learning from the book.

I will keep this article short and to the point.

WHO THIS BOOK IS FOR?

The book is for those people who are interested in the data analytics field or who love creating visuals.

The book is organized in such a way that first the author explains how the visualizations should look followed by telling a story with data and ending with an explanation of the real-life examples.

The book is a reference something you can keep coming back to while creating data visualizations.

Chapter 1:- the importance of context

In this chapter, the author describes the key difference between exploratory analysis and explanatory analysis.

But before jumping into these two analyses here are a couple of questions that a data analyst needs to keep in mind.

1. To whom are you communicating?
2. What do you want your audience/clients to know or do?
3. How can you use data to help make your point?

This chapter also focuses on understanding the communication that takes place between data analysts and the audience/client.

There is a story in your data. But your tools don’t know what that story is. That’s where it takes you — the analyst or communicator of the information — to bring that story visually and contextually to life.

Chapter 2:- choosing an effective visual

Well, there are tons of graphs available. But very few graphs are used most frequently while creating visualizations. The author explains when to use appropriate graphs with illustrating real-world examples. It also covers the graphs that need to be avoided with reasons.

Chapter 3:- clutter is your enemy

Adding clutter makes the visuals more complicated and hinders the process of communication. It adds too much cognitive load on the audience/clients. One should not add too much data just because there is a lot of space.

In this chapter, the author explains how to use Gestalt Principles of Visual Perception while designing our visuals.

Chapter 4:- focus your audience’s attention

The chapter focuses on how we want our audience/clients to communicate with our visuals.

There are strategies explained to help where we want the audience to focus and to create a visual hierarchy so that the audience will process information the way we want.

Colors need to be chosen sparingly if not it will impact the overall tone of the visualization.

Chapter 5:- think like a designer

The title says it all.

Let’s take the example of scissors.

Now the scissor is designed in such a way that anyone can use it and everyone finds the design of the scissor appropriate.

The same technique we have to use while designing our visuals. The design of the visuals should be done in such a way that the audience finds it easy to interpret the data and the graphs that we use are appropriate for data visuals.

In short, the audience should gain acceptance from your visuals.

Chapter 6:- dissecting model visuals

In this chapter, the author illustrates examples of how to make a good visualization utilizing the lessons that have been covered before.

Chapter 7:- lessons in storytelling

What makes an audience like a particular story in a movie/play?

Because the story is constructed in a way that it has a

1. Beginning -(introduction to the character)
2. Middle -(there will be some twists) where the audience is curious about what will happen next
3. End -(how the character overcomes the difficulties)

The same techniques we have to apply while telling the story with data.

Conflict and tension are key to grabbing and maintaining your audience’s attention.

Chapter 8,9,10:- pulling it all together, case studies, final thought

The author has refreshed the preceding points that we have learned. Also covered some examples with a story to tell with data.

CONCLUSION

However, there’s a lot more in this book than I can easily summarize here.

I think people from the data analytics field will benefit from reading storytelling with data books.

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