Understand Data Storytelling in <5 minutes!
When people talk about storytelling, it is mostly fiction and fables or life events narrated in a way to stick the message to the audience in a subtle way. Data Storytelling is more or less the same thing. You’re helping the audience get the message (and it’s very real because you back it up with data). Let’s skip the narration here and dive right into it.
What this article is?
A brief introduction and understanding of Data Storytelling.
What this article isn’t?
An explanation of how you can do data storytelling and make compelling narratives to wow the audience (we’ll get to that in an upcoming article, or just drop a text on LinkedIn, and we’ll get you up to speed on that if needed urgently)
Note: The views in this article are mine alone, I urge you to find more sources and do your own research on how you can write a good data story on your own and weave the narrative to help your audience get the complete picture of the plot (i.e., the project or situation or baseline)
- Tools to use: Tableau, PowerBi, Excel & Powerpoint
These tools are not tough to use and yes, with Excel and PowerPoint too you can try to make a decent data story (provided you know that the value of a story is not just in the narrative but more in the content)
What is Data Storytelling?
Think of it like this, every story has an introduction and a plot base, followed by the main story and the message or conclusion.
Data Storytelling is just the same thing, you have an introduction, a story that you narrate using data visualizations and statistics or anything essentially related to data, and then you have a conclusion or message as a giveaway to your audience that they will hold on to for a longer time than how the same insights would work in a presentation.
The best part of the story is that everyone understands the flow. How every stage plays a role in the following stage and how one reaches the conclusion.
What are the essential elements of a Data story?
- Independent visualizations
- Dashboards
- Data
- The plot and the narrative
Independent visualizations
Independent visuals can be a part of the data story by laying emphasis on things that require a lot of attention.
For example, on sharing a data story about how your organization’s churn has been growing, you might want to start with an individual number, say 30%, and cite the situation at hand, i.e., a very high churn %.
Dashboards
Dashboards can show the collective movement of a lot of different things together that can show how the plot of your story moves with a change in a certain aspect.
For example, continuing our churn story, maybe you want to show how your organization’s revenue increases and costs reduce, and also your retention rates improve as an impact of a reduced churn % (which may be your target)
Data
The data is really important if you want to know how the story can change with time. Having a forecast of your numbers or just the right metrics to show in your presentation can help you elaborate on the situation at hand with ease.
Continuing the idea, maybe you want to show the variance of the churn in the months throughout the year, where the average is being impacted by a high churn during new year’s eve (which is completely hypothetical)
The plot and the narrative
The baseline of your story defines how your story changes with time.
What makes a good story? Think.
A good plot twist, a couple of amazing characters that support the main character, the villain and their sidekicks, or just the antagonizing elements, the place where the story takes place, a couple of hints of how the sequel would look, and REALLY GOOD STORYTELLING to make sure your audience remembers the takeaways at their fingertips.
Where can you learn how to tell a Data Story?
There are quite a few ways you can learn how to get going with a data story;
- Books (link at the end of the article)
- Video tutorials (link at the end of the article)
- Practice
- Practice
- Practice
- Practice
- and finally, Practice.
Find the links for the resources in books and video tutorials to see, at the end of this article.
Advantages and Disadvantages of Data Storytelling?
Advantages:
- One can compile an entire presentation in the form of a data story and make compelling insights about the data at hand.
- Data stories can give information that a user would otherwise not look at by exploring a particular side of the story.
- Data storytelling improves retention of the information shared with the audience.
Disadvantages:
- Data stories can bias the opinion one has about a situation by not showing them the entire picture *which can be avoided in a good data story.
- Data storytelling can leave the audience with more questions than answers if not communicated effectively.
To learn how to perform data storytelling in an amazing way; check out these resources:
Let me know in the comments below if you have any other pointers or charts that everyone should look into. Leave a clap and follow to stay in touch with any new articles and to support the blog!
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