Storytelling With Data

Figure 3.14 Revamped summary of survey feedback

Preattentive attributes are powerful tools when used sparingly and strategically in visual communication. Without other cues, our audience is left to process all of the information we put in front of them. Ease this by leveraging preattentive attributes like size, color, and position on page to signal what’s important. Use these strategic attribute

it is recommended that at most 10% of the visual design be highlighted.

keep your user—your audience—top-of-mind when designing your communications with data.

bar charts should be leveraged because they are common, as this means less of a learning curve for your audience. Instead of using their brain power to try to understand how to read the graph, your audience spends it figuring out what information to take away from the visual.

Note how a few choice words and phrases make this data so much more quickly accessible than it otherwise would be.

The human eye isn’t good at ascribing quantitative value to two-dimensional space. Said more simply: pie charts are hard for people to read.

In order to be successful, a narrative has to be central to the communication. These are words—written, spoken, or a combination of the two—that tell the story in an order that makes sense and convinces the audience why it’s important or interesting and attention to it should be paid.

Identifying the decision maker is one way of narrowing your audience.