8 Rules of Visualizing Data for Business

In this age of data deluge in business, it is obvious to think that revenue maximization has become a whole lot easier. You already have a lot of data to play around with, all you have to do is to demand reports from your analysts. Is it that easy? I would say no.

Human mind is not programmed to be at ease with multiple numbers and on-the-fly mental calculations. Complexity and information retention don’t go hand in hand. It is easier to compare 2–3 products simultaneously, not 10. However, we respond to what pleases our senses, great food, music and of course, soothing colors.

Over the past year, I have extensively used Tableau to visualize data and derive insights for clients. While it is an exceptional piece of software, it can only go as far as your mind goes. While I have made stumbled often in the process, I have learnt what works and what doesn’t. Here are my 8 rules of effective visualization;

1. Use colors wisely: Bright colors don’t work. They are the easiest at shutting minds off. Use lighter shades, and any color will do the trick, yes, even red. Copy colors if you like them. When you find a great color online, download and open the image using Paint, use eyedropper to find the RGB values to create your own pallets.

2. Minimize whitespaces: This is important when you are showing multiple visualizations in a dashboard or presentation. Minimize the whitespaces and use lighter shades of gray to give a tiled look.

3. Decide on Shapes: For example, when showing more than 5 categories, I prefer a stacked chart to a pie chart, especially when the distribution is skewed towards 2–3 categories. Use treemaps or bubble charts wherever possible.

4. Use ‘clean’ fonts: Even though Google Fonts library provides the best ones for presentation and labeling, you might not be able to use them in some situations. In such cases, use Century Gothic or Ebrima to give your charts a clean look.

5. Gridlines are important: Visualizing information using linecharts can be pretty confusing unless you can get the information via a tooltip or a reference axis. If you don’t have a tooltip activated, use gridlines to make reading the chart easier.

6. Allow for multiple screen compatibility: People own 2–3 screens nowadays. Make your visualizations easy to read across platforms, w.r.t. colors, fonts and boundaries. Extremely important when developing a BI platform for visual analysis.

7. Arrange your charts: Human eyes move mostly in F or Z form when reading charts or accessing information online. Use this knowledge to arrange your chart layout so that they tell a story when combined together.

8. Tell a story: This is the most important rule of all. If you can’t use a chart to tell a story, junk it. Combine charts to tell a story to the world. People get engaged with your visuals when they see a story.

I am no expert, but the above rules have come out of my own experiences in my job role as well as feedback from my peers and colleagues. I hope that this helps people who are keen on visualizing data and letting insights take the form of a story.