HELP YOUR DATA TELL ITS STORY 7Tips for more effective ... · of your business – a quick, visual story that will drive understanding, discussion, and decision-making. To do this,

HELP YOUR DATA TELL ITS STORY

Tips for more effective visualizations 7

http://www.qlik.com

In today’s data-driven world, how you show and share your data is critical in determining its overall impact and effectiveness. But just putting your data into charts and graphs isn’t enough. Effective data visualization takes skill and storytelling, an eye for detail, and an understanding of your audience.

Ready to learn the 7 secrets that can make the difference between great visualizations and just another set of charts? Let’s dive in.

Start with the story you want to tell.

WHAT STORY DO YOU WANT TO TELL?

Good visualizations highlight relationships between data which can tell a powerful story.

Outliers illuminate deviations from the norm.

Trends indicate changes over time.

Patterns show repeated, consistent characteristics.

Correlations communicate relationships between two or more variables.

Whatever your specific goals may be, when you create a visualization, you’re really trying to capture a snapshot of your business – a quick, visual story that will drive understanding, discussion, and decision-making. To do this, you need to understand the data you’re working with and determine what story you want to tell. Start by asking a few questions.

1UNDERSTAND YOUR DATA DETERMINE YOUR STORY

• How many data sets are you working with and can they be combined?

• Is your data qualitative or quantitative?

• Is there external data you want to include?

• How accurate or fresh is your data?

• What are the key messages you want to convey?

• What do you want your audience to think, do, or feel?

• What details will lend credence and support to your story?

COMPARISON VISUALIZATIONS

COMPOSITION VISUALIZATIONS

DISTRIBUTION VISUALIZATIONS

RELATIONSHIP VISUALIZATIONS

FREQUENTLY USED FOR

Identifying the highest and lowest values

Seeing current versus older values

Spotting trends

Seeing the relationship between data points that change over time

Identifying the relative difference between parts of a whole

Identifying commonalities and outliers

Seeing the general shape of a range

Showing correlations and clusters

Identifying outliers

ANSWERS QUESTIONS

LIKE

Which products sell best?

How are our sales compared to last year?

How big is our market share?

What percentage of the budget is going toward x, y, and z?

How many customers exist across a demographic range?

How many days late are customer payments?

Is there a correlation between advertising spend and sales?

What’s the variation between expenses and revenue across regions?

EXAMPLES

Pie chart

Stacked 100%

area chart

Stacked area chart

Stacked 100% bar chart

Stacked bar chart

Variable width chart Table or tables with embedded charts

Bar chart horizontal

Circular area chart Line chart

Line chart

Source: ©A. Abela, 2010. www.ExtremePresentation.com

Scatter plot bubble size

Bar histogram

Line histogram

Visualizations

Comparison

Composition

Relationship DistributionWhat would you

like to show?

Scatter plot

Scatter plot

Bar chart

Waterfall chart

Stacked 100% bar chart w/subcomponents

Tree map

Pie chart

Stacked 100%

area chart

Stacked area chart


Stacked bar chart




Line chart



Bar histogram

Line histogram

Visualizations

Comparison

Composition


like to show?

Scatter plot

Scatter plot

Bar chart

Waterfall chart


Tree map

Pie chart

Stacked 100%

area chart

Stacked area chart


Stacked bar chart




Line chart



Bar histogram

Line histogram

Visualizations

Comparison

Composition


like to show?

Scatter plot

Scatter plot

Bar chart

Waterfall chart


Tree map

Pie chart

Stacked 100%

area chart

Stacked area chart


Stacked bar chart




Line chart



Bar histogram

Line histogram

Visualizations

Comparison

Composition


like to show?

Scatter plot

Scatter plot

Bar chart

Waterfall chart


Tree map

Pie chart

Stacked 100%

area chart

Stacked area chart


Stacked bar chart




Line chart



Bar histogram

Line histogram

Visualizations

Comparison

Composition


like to show?

Scatter plot

Scatter plot

Bar chart

Waterfall chart


Tree map

Pie chart

Stacked 100%

area chart

Stacked area chart


Stacked bar chart




Line chart



Bar histogram

Line histogram

Visualizations

Comparison

Composition


like to show?

Scatter plot

Scatter plot

Bar chart

Waterfall chart


Tree map

Pie chart

Stacked 100%

area chart

Stacked area chart


Stacked bar chart




Line chart



Bar histogram

Line histogram

Visualizations

Comparison

Composition


like to show?

Scatter plot

Scatter plot

Bar chart

Waterfall chart


Tree map

Pie chart

Stacked 100%

area chart

Stacked area chart


Stacked bar chart




Line chart



Bar histogram

Line histogram

Visualizations

Comparison

Composition


like to show?

Scatter plot

Scatter plot

Bar chart

Waterfall chart


Tree map

Pie chart

Stacked 100%

area chart

Stacked area chart


Stacked bar chart




Line chart



Bar histogram

Line histogram

Visualizations

Comparison

Composition


like to show?

Scatter plot

Scatter plot

Bar chart

Waterfall chart


Tree mapPie chart

Stacked 100%

area chart

Stacked area chart


Stacked bar chart




Line chart



Bar histogram

Line histogram

Visualizations

Comparison

Composition


like to show?

Scatter plot

Scatter plot

Bar chart

Waterfall chart


Tree mapPie chart

Stacked 100%

area chart

Stacked area chart


Stacked bar chart




Line chart



Bar histogram

Line histogram

Visualizations

Comparison

Composition


like to show?

Scatter plot

Scatter plot

Bar chart

Waterfall chart


Tree map

2 According to Qlik Visualization Advocate Dr. Patrik Lundblad, there are four fundamental types of data visualizations, each of which can provide specific insights:

Choose the right visualization.

DO: USE DISTINCT COLORS FOR

EACH SEGMENT OF A PIE CHART

DON’T: COLOR SEGMENTS USING

DIFFERENT SHADES OF THE

SAME COLOR.

DO: USE DIFFERENT SHADES OF

THE SAME COLOR TO DESIGNATE

NUMEROUS VISUAL ELEMENTS.

DON’T: USE DIFFERENT COLORS

WHEN DEALING WITH NUMEROUS

GRAPHICAL ELEMENTS.

DO: USE THE SAME COLOR FOR

EACH BAR OF A BAR CHART.

DON’T: USE A DIFFERENT COLOR

FOR EACH BAR.

3 Color can be a powerful aid to your visualizations, giving clear cues about relative value, points of emphasis, and differentiation between data sets. Choose your colors carefully, though – and more important, sparingly – because color used improperly can actually cause more confusion than it clears up.

Use color – carefully.

WHOA – SLOW DOWN THERE

We get it, it’s easy to get excited about visualizations. But it’s possible to get a little too fancy, with too many bells and whistles. In fact, there’s even a name for the phenomenon: Chartjunk.

Here are a few of the most common chartjunk offenders:

With each visualization, ask yourself, “Which elements here are most important to the story I’m trying to tell?” Trying to cram too much into the same visualization only adds confusion and makes it harder to spot the insights.

Making simple visualizations doesn’t have to be complex:

• Limit the number of visualizations in a dashboard to 9 or less

• Add callouts to emphasize the information that’s most critical to your message

• Use trend lines to highlight important correlations between variables, and make your graphs more scannable

• Use size and color to clearly define unique data variables

• Avoid decorative fonts, text treatments like underlines and italics, and visual embellishments like drop shadows

Keep it simple.4

Make it look good.Design matters. So use a few basic design principles in your visualizations to add clarity and avoid confusion. For example:5

DO: ORDER SLICES FROM

LARGEST TO SMALLEST

for easier comparison

DON’T: RANDOMLY ORDER

THE SLICES

DO: USE TRANSPARENT COLORS

so each element remains visible

DON’T: USE SOLID COLOR WITH

OVERLAPPING DATA

DO: USE 2D LINES

to clearly convey priority and ranking

DON’T: USE 3D LINES

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Show your data at the right scale.

Improper scale can make major insights seem mediocre and minor deviations feel massive.

To correctly represent the story your data is showing:

• Make sure the scale of your axes accurately reflects the size of the data you’re visualizing

• Choose the axes that will best represent trends in your data. Will absolute numbers or percentages make your data clearer?

• Don’t use cropped axes. Always start the Y-axis at 0

6 DO: START Y-AXIS VALUE AT 0

DON’T: TRUNCATE THE SCALE

PRO TIP: Vertical type can

be difficult to read, so use horizontal labels whenever

possible.

7Create visualizations with your audience in mind.

In the end, it all comes to down to knowing what your audience is actually interested in – and giving them what they want. Even the clearest, best-looking visualizations can still be duds if they’re not helpful or interesting to the people you’re trying to reach.

Ensure you’re delivering a persuasive story by:

• Highlighting and ordering your information based on your audience’s interests

• Visualizing your data in an intuitive, conventional manner to facilitate understanding

• Testing your visualizations with a few trusted colleagues to ensure the story they’re seeing is the one you wanted to tell

When done well, a good visualization transforms messy, massive data sets into discussions, understanding, and well-informed decisions.

By creating visualizations that don’t just present data, but tell a clear, compelling story, you can explore, explain, and express critical information and make intelligent decisions that can have a big impact on your business.

qlik.com

© 2016 QlikTech International AB. All rights reserved. Qlik,® Qlik Sense,® QlikView,® QlikTech,® Qlik Cloud,® Qlik DataMarket,® Qlik Analytics Platform,® Qlik NPrinting,™ Qlik Connectors™ and the QlikTech logos are trademarks of QlikTech International AB, which have been registered in multiple countries. Other marks and logos mentioned herein are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners.

See the whole story that lives within your data.

http://www.qlik.com

http://www.qlik.com

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HELP YOUR DATA TELL ITS STORY 7Tips for more effective ... · of your business – a quick, visual story that will drive understanding, discussion, and decision-making. To do this,