In a way, visual storytelling is just a tributary feeding into a deeper, swifter river of business activities that use narrative as a catalyst—selling, persuading, leading.

Add reference points.

• Limit eye travel. Place labels and legends in close proximity to what they describe.

KNIFE SKILLS

you may even be able to describe it as “clear” or “revealing” without understanding that you’re actually describing elementary encodings or perceptual salience.

The more relevant a data visualization is, the more forgiving, to a point, we can be about its execution.

Exploration lends itself to interactivity—allowing a manager to adjust parameters, inject data sources, and continually revisualize.

Workflows.

Ask yourself, What do I want viewers to do with this chart?