6 steps to cook a Great Data Story
“The power of storytelling is exactly this: to bridge the gaps where everything else has crumbled” ~ Paulo Coelho
Remember as kids, how excited some of us used to get about listening to stories. Well, for me, I still am attracted to storytelling. From eagerly waiting for grandma’s stories to creating and telling stories myself, I believe an effective storyteller is someone who can make the readers visualize the plot with just his words.
And similar is the case with Data storytelling. The demand for data storytelling has grown significantly over the years. It is not just because of the increasing role of data in our lives but because storytelling is something that people can easily connect to. And this is where data storytellers have the upper hand.
Creating a good data story is a task that requires detailed attention and carefulness. So, if you are looking for some tips on bringing the most out of your data storytelling, this article is just for you.
Let’s begin.
What is Data Storytelling?
By simple definition, Data storytelling is the methodology to create new knowledge, action or decisions using data in a way that the general audience can understand very easily. Data storytelling puts into action a combined knowledge of communication, analysis and design.
The idea behind data storytelling is to explain what is the data and why does it matter. However, when I say data storytelling, I don’t just mean the narrative part. Instead, the best way to let more people grasp data storytelling is by adding visuals to it.
Stories have always been there. We just need people who can convey their meaning effectively.
What makes a story great?
Good stories have a beginning, middle and end but people tend to remember the stories that have something beyond these like a twist or emotional connection to keep the audience hooked throughout.
Taking the classic example of the Cinderella story, Kurt Vonnegut, the legendary storyteller analyzed the plot to construct an emotional arc out of it:
This representation by Kurt Vonnegut provides an analogy between Cinderella’s ill fortune and good fortune with respect to her life events (data points). Definitely a brilliant example of how a story is plotted against data points.
Why is Data Storytelling important?
Now that we know what data storytelling is, let us understand why data storytelling is so important.
Data storytelling is crucial because it communicates data insights in a way that people having little or no knowledge about data analysis can also understand. For example, your children’s report card- even if you have no idea about the subjects, the representation of the marks makes you understand whether he is performing well or not.
Stories when fueled with data help us understand the patterns and insights that are hidden or require in-depth attention. However, as they say “with great power comes great responsibility”. Similarly, the power of data puts a huge responsibility on the data storyteller.
Firstly, it is important to understand that data storytelling is not just about stating the numbers. In fact, numbers alone are not sufficient.
Eg. When I say, 84% matters. It does not make any sense. And you might wonder, 84% of what- am I talking about myself or in general. Therefore, numbers have to be put in context with data to create meaningful data stories.
The best way to combine numbers and data is through visuals. All the more reason why you would remember a meme more than your studies or business presentations.
Ingredients for a great data story
A great data story is the one that helps people drive some positive decisions through it. Here is how you can create a great data story:
- Focus should be on relevancy:
First and foremost, you need to understand what your target audience is and then you could deliver the content based on their knowledge. The best stories are the ones that speak to the people and provide them with some goals to perform. After all, what point is the story when people can neither remember it nor relate to it?
2. Needs to include Data:
As we are talking about data storytelling, so data has to be our centre point. But you have to make sure that the data you are using has been collected from a reputable source and can be used to create credible stories.
So, collecting data from government entities or intergovernmental organizations is always a good idea. Besides, it’s important to understand that your data should help the audience make informed decisions of exactly what they need.
3. Should have a clear Narrative:
As said above, a great story has a beginning, middle and end with some twist or emotional arc. Similarly, for data stories, there has to be an introduction before you jump onto the topic and a specific call to action.
Besides, you should always try to refrain from using typical technical terms or acronyms making it hard for the audience to understand.
4. Must include appealing Visuals:
Visuals are grasped more by the people but have to be very clear and relevant in accord with your data, be it images, graphs or charts. Furthermore, to create great data stories, it’s important to understand the right color combinations.
How to cook an efficient data story- 6 simple steps
- Begin with listening to your audience:
Before beginning to create a story, it’s always a good idea to have a clear understanding of the audience, their needs, goals and what actions they are looking to perform through the data.
For example- Suppose my audience wants to know about OTT platform usage and the top shows/movies watched. My goal here is to create a data story that could help them make their decisions on the same. For this, I can take data from Google Trends 2020.
2. Use the data that matters:
When you know your audience, you can understand what data is beneficial to you and how you can present them.
If my audience wants to know which states in India were the top watchers of OTT platforms in the past 12 months, my focus should be to show them the graph just for it rather than pinpointing the entire area.
3. Create a compelling story:
Once you have the data, you can explore a lot of possibilities but we all know, people hardly remember the data. So, it’s imperative to be able to build a story around the data. Now, this point is of utmost importance and has to be done with perfection.
Talking about the above example, instead of just throwing the plain data towards my audience, I could dive deeper into all that matters and how that can help me narrate a story combining the numbers and texts.
4. Use visuals to explain:
Numbers, texts and visuals have to go hand-in-hand for impactful data stories. There are plenty of templates available online that could be used depending on the type of story you are telling.
5. Be honest:
Manipulating data just for the sake of making it look good is never a good idea. The audience wants honesty and credibility in your stories, and this is exactly what they should be given. The aim should be to portray the data as it is.
6. Keep your story to the point:
I like stories that are short and meaningful and I assume that’s what the audience admires too. Let’s admit this, we are living in a fast-moving world, nobody has got the time to go through multiple pages. Instead, when your stories are concise with the relevant points, they drive a much better impact.
To conclude
Data storytelling is a whole process. It doesn’t matter whether your core strength is analytics or design, as long as you know how to combine them all, you are good to go. However, to reach the topmost level, you need to start from somewhere.
So, if you have just begun or need some brushing of your skills, you can check this course on data storytelling. After all, an efficient data storyteller is someone who pays attention to detail like what matters the most.
