Techniques of Data Visualization: from Charts to Storytelling

A guide to data visualization and the principles that underpin it. Create effective charts and storytelling to improve visual communication and presentation skills

It’s rare to find someone good at effectively communicating the meaning of data.

On social media, I often see charts that look beautiful and clean and that evoke the “wow effect”, but which upon closer inspection fail to communicate the right meaning and the interpretation of the underlying data.

In this case, the author of the visualization focuses on details that do not aid the understanding of what is observed, such as writing descriptive texts, repeating already known information and giving relevance to irrelevant elements.

The result is a chart full of pictorial elements, with bright colors that dominate the scene and little or no indications that help the viewer’s brain make sense of what is on the screen.

This happens because data visualization is not included in a reference framework, and there is no awareness that data visualization is an independent skill, but closely connected, to that of analyzing the data itself.