▮ Visualizing Data
All machine-learning-related engineers inevitably have to deal with data. That means there will always be a situation where these engineers have to use those data to create proposals and communicate with their clients.
Being able to visualize data and gain insights from it is key to turning those data into information that can help drive better data-driven decisions.
In the book “Storytelling With Data” by Cole Nussbaumer Knaflic, she introduces the 6 lessons to enable you to shift from simply showing data to storytelling with data.
Here are the 6 lessons introduced in the book.
- ▮ 1: The importance of context
- ▮ 2: Choosing an effective visual
- ▮ 3: Clutter is your enemy
- ▮ 4: Focus your audience’s attention
- ▮ 5: Think like a designer
- ▮ 6: Tell a story
▮ 1: The importance of context
The first thing we should do when visualizing data is to understand the context behind the project. We would want to identify the following elements.
WHO
Who is going to be your audience? The more specific you can be about who your audience is, the better position you will be to deeply resonate with them and form meaningful communication.
WHAT
What do you need your audience to know? What do you need your audience to do? If you can’t articulate these questions, you need to revisit whether you need to communicate in the first place.
HOW
After identifying the WHO and the WHAT, we would want to consider how are we exactly going to do it. What data is available right now that can help me make my point?
Articulating your story
After organizing the WHO, WHAT, and HOW, employ concepts such as the following to plan your story.
・3-minute-story: What would you say if you only have 3 minutes?
・The big idea: Boil down the “so-what” down to a single concise statement
・Storyboarding: Create a visual outline of the content you plan to create.
▮ 2: Choosing an effective visual
According to the author, after creating more than 150 data visualizations, there were only a dozen different types of visuals that the author used.
Here are the 12 visuals.
Since most of the charts above are quite common, some people may want to avoid them. But actually, it should be the opposite. Being common should be leveraged because it means less of a learning curve for your audience.
Conversely, it might be risky to use graphs that no one has ever seen before.
What to avoid
・Pie/Donut Charts
Simply because they are hard to read. When segments are close in size, it is difficult to tell which is bigger.
With pies, they require the audience to compare angles and areas. With a donut chart, we are asking our audience to compare one arc length. It’s just not easy to intuitively distinguish when the differences are subtle.
・3D
The author stresses that the golden rule of data visualization is to never use 3D.
Adding 3D introduces unnecessary chart elements. These subtle distractions can easily create misunderstandings.
・Secondary y-axes
It takes some time and reading to understand which data should be read against which axis.
▮ 3: Clutter is your enemy
The more element you add to a presentation the more it takes the audience’s brain power to process. We want to identify and eliminate those clutters so that we can have effective communication.
What matters most is the perceived brain power to process(cognitive load) your presentation: how hard they believe they are going to have to work to get the information through your presentation.
We don’t want to create a presentation with unnecessary elements, which makes it appear more complicated, and run the risk of our audience deciding not to take the time to understand it.
Identifying the clutter
So how do we identify the clutters?
The Gestalt Principles of Visual Perception can become very helpful. This was set out to understand how people interact with and create order out of visual stimuli.
These principles can help you find which elements keep the visual order and which are disturbing it(clutters).
▮ 4: Focus your audience’s attention
After de-cluttering and creating order in your visuals, the next step is to draw your audience’s attention to where you want it to be.
Ex: Colors
One of the easiest to change and effective approaches may be choosing the colors intentionally.
By changing the color of an element(attention-grabbing color), you can naturally draw the audience’s attention to that element.
I recommend using grey as the base color because the attention-grabbing color stands out more compared to black.
It is also important to use colors sparingly. Using too much color makes it hard for the audience to decide which element to focus on.
▮ 5: Think like a designer
You may have not recognized it just yet, but we have already been thinking like a designer through the previous steps.
To make an easy-to-understand visual, I personally think it’s unnecessary to design like an ARTIST. Just sticking to some simple rules can make your visuals elegant enough. (Recommended additional readings: “The Non-Designer’s Design Book” by Robin Williams)
Here are the 3 simple rules that helped me think a little bit more like a designer.
1. Alignment
2. Contrast
3. Consistency
Let’s go through each element using some of the presentations I used when I was a residential architect. Even though the presentation is using ground plans, the principles apply to any content.
Alignment
Every element in the presentation should be aligned with at least one other element. ALIGNMENT is the most important aspect. No matter how much the colors and fonts are different if it’s aligned it’ll seem as if it is organized.
Contrast
Use Bigger letters for your main message. This is important to emphasize the difference between each element to show which element you want the audience to pay attention to. You don’t want everything to look the same.
(The example below’s main message is the client’s residence’s name)
Consistency
Be consistent, considering font, size, and color, in all the slides to show visual order.
Like in the presentation, you can easily tell that all three slides are consistent and the visual order makes us feel that it is all coming from the same residence’s presentation. Even though they are not.
▮ 6: Tell a story
Finally, this step is to walk our audience through the story in the way we want them to experience it using the visuals we’ve created.
The magic of story
After watching a fantastic movie or reading a great book, we could easily describe the story to a friend even after days, weeks, or maybe months.
Ideally, we want to ignite the same kind of energy in our audiences as well.
Every good story has a three-act structure:
1. Beginning
The plot: building the context for our audience
2. Middle
The twist: convincing the audience of the need for action to turn a “what is” situation into a “what could be”
3. End
Call to action: make it totally clear to your audience what you want them to do
We can use this idea to set up the stories we want to tell. Leverage conflict and tension to grab and maintain your audience’s attention.
Reinforce with repetition
We can also utilize the power of repetition, such as “Bing, Bang, Bongo” to help our stories stick with our audiences.
・Bing
First tell your audience what you are going to say
・Bang
Tell them what you said you were going to tell them
・Bongo
Summarize what you’ve told them
This method can be leveraged to help ensure that your story is clear.
