DATA

STORIES

Creating compelling
stories with data

Effectively combining
Storytelling, Data
Visualisation and
business reporting Prepared by: Miriam Gilbert
February 24, 2014 Storytelling with Numbers
 page page page
.
Table of Contents
03 06 10
Introduction to Business What is different about Visual communication:
Storytelling Data Storytelling Data Visualisation

page page page page page

15 17 19 30 40
Visual communication: Visual communication: Visual communication: Visual communication: Storytelling:
Expressiveness et al The right tools Drawing attention Guidelines Create a narrative

page page page page page

44 47 52 56 57
Storytelling: Create a Storyboarding for Storytelling: Appendix Resources and
compelling structure content and lay-out Examples End notes credits

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©Miriam Gilbert Storytelling with Numbers
 What has storytelling to The most common focus for
Storytelling do with business? storytelling in business is to
in Business Isn’t business about hard facts and
persuade, influence and
figures? Actually, storytelling has motivate an audience.
become big business.
Think of a CEO standing in front of a
Corporate storytelling has gone
crowd of employees. Or a major brand
mainstream in the last decade, with
trying to entice customer to buy more
leaders use storytelling techniques to
inspire staff and all self-respecting of their products. Because of that, you
marketers use stories when talking find most business storytellers within
about products, services and brands. marketing, branding and sales
functions and among leadership
groups. However, with the rise of ever
more data being accessible and
digestible by organisation, a new kind
of business story teller is emerging
Using stories to convey a among data scientist, analysts and
other technical professionals. News
message not a new thing.
media businesses are already on the
Storytelling is one human trait case: Data Journalist has become a
that transcends time and recognised job description.

culture. Examples of stories

“Data Storyteller” also seems set to
have been found in all known become a common job description,
societies throughout history.. alongside data scientist . And if you
google “Master Data Storyteller” you
will find more than one company
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©Miriam Gilbert Storytelling with Numbers advertising vacancies!
 The Oxford Dictionary Most traditional definitions of “story”
How to we define defines “story” as:
demand that a story includes a

“stories” in
protagonist, some kind of struggle or
conflict, dialogue and sensory
1: An account of imaginary or real language. That would mean that
business? people and events told for many forms of narrative do not
entertainment; 2: A report of an item qualify, including for example, silent
of news in a newspaper, magazine, or movies and video games, even
broadcast; 3: An account of past though there is a large industry
events in someone’s life or in the devoted to developing storylines for
development of something; 4: The games. Based on that definition, the
commercial prospects or place for stories in business would be
circumstances of a particular limited, and many areas of
company. organisations might shy away from
exploring the benefits of stories. To
There is no single, ultimate define Data Stories, we therefore
adopt a more inclusive approach:
definition for what constitutes
a story, just many, many
opinions

Stories are accounts of real or imaginary events that engage the

listener in interactive1 communication

©Miriam Gilbert Storytelling with Numbers | 4

 Research in neuroscience and psychology investigates what
How Storytelling happens when we are exposed to stories. It’s shown that
works stories have a physical, mental and emotional impact on us,
and that evolution has indeed hardwired our brains to respond
Stories can make the to stories differently compared with all other forms of
complex simple
Living in an increasingly complex world,
communication1.
we place a lot of reliance on facts and
data. However, the numbers rarely speak
for themselves, they need expert Stories make information
interpretation. Stories can provide that memorable
interpretation by taking analysis results, Research shows most people forget facts
trends and scenarios off the and data quickly. However, people can
spreadsheets and bringing them into vividly recall stories they heard in childhood.
the world of people. They can convey Studies into how our brain reacts to stories
complex relationships, provide context show that stories give people an emotional
and allow us to compare what we hear frame of reference. This makes stories
to our experience – thus enabling us to “sticky” and they provide the language to
assimilate information quicker and be recalled quickly.
question more insightful those things
that don’t fit our expectations.

Stories can foster collaboration and embed values

In modern organisations, we are often part of multi-function teams and collaboration is vital to achieve the business’ goals. Using
stories can help create common ground by enabling us to share experiences and make abstract concepts tangible.

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©Miriam Gilbert Storytelling with Numbers
What is different
about Data
Storytelling
General issues with Data stories – how they Data stories combine narrative
business communication can help storytelling with data in a format that
Many traditional business reports and Data stories take advantage of the makes the data easily accessible,
presentations err on the side of detail, power of storytelling to quickly
resulting in lengthy documents with provide context and establish generally using visualisation:
dense text, tables and over-busy relevance and expectations. This
graphs. Of course, executives and enables the audience to grasp a large
meeting attendees then regularly quantity of facts quickly This is
initiate an exercise to reduce the combined with the power of effective
paper mountain, asking for executive visual communication to let the
summaries, highlights or exception audience grasp large amounts of
reports, one page briefing memos information in “chunks” that help the
and dashboards. working memory retain information.
There is a large body of evidence
The trick here is to ensure that all the
showing that the working memory is
relevant information is still present in
correlated with problem solving,
the shortened version and your
learning, reasoning, and reading
message comes across clearly. Too
comprehension – all good ingredients
often, the shortened version (and
for your audience to experience.
sometime the long version as well)
does not answer the crucial question:
©Miriam Gilbert Storytelling with Numbers | 6
So what? What is the story?
Data Storytelling:
Definition

A method of delivering messages derived from

complex data analysis in a way that allows the
audience to quickly and easily assimilate the
material, understand its meaning and draw
conclusions from it.

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©Miriam Gilbert Storytelling with Numbers
Key ingredients for
Data Storytelling - 1
A message
Without a message, you have no story. And you owe it your audience to
Going beyond the data means give them a story. A data scientists or data analysts job is partly to
assemble the data (mine, discover, unearth, aggregate) and help the rest of
presenting a message – key to
the world to draw meaning from it without the audience having to
effective (data) storytelling understand the hundreds of caveats, sources, transformations, etc.
necessary to get usable insights.

A poor data scientist is a number She makes sure her audience

monkey, able to use new tools to understands what the data suggests
blindly pull whatever information is and what it does NOT suggest. She
asked of him. He will be replaced by helps the audience - whether that is
automated tools in the next 10 the CEO, CMO, BOD, or conference
years. A good data scientist does attendees - to understand that
the job of the poor one and more. because something is correlated,
She is a critical reviewer of the data. one effect is not necessarily caused
She develops a hypothesis based by another, and keeps the insights
on the data, verifies her hypotheses sane. At the end of the day her
by investigating similar data that analysis is successful when actions
would disprove her hypotheses, can be taken from her insights and
making sure she catches any she has been asked about angles
obvious mistakes. she had not yet explored.

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©Miriam Gilbert Storytelling with Numbers
Key ingredients for
Data Storytelling - 2

Narrative Structure and flow Visual communication

A narrative is any account of connected Structure is the internal framework that A good data visualization has the ability to
events, presented to a reader or listener in holds the data story together. Flow is the show you something that you wouldn’t
a sequence of written or spoken words, or “movement” through the story; the order have seen by only looking at the data, it
in a sequence of (moving) pictures or in which you arrange the information and presents the data in a way that the viewer
acted display. It’s the tool you use to style to present the information to your can explore and understand it. Most
convey your message. When it comes to audience. commonly, charts and graphs are used for
data stories, you select from a this purpose.
combination of words, graphics and
potential videos (mime and dance are less
likely in a business setting).

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©Miriam Gilbert Storytelling with Numbers
 Data Visualisation
Expressiveness, precision and
accuracy
The right tools
Drawing attention
Guidelines

Visual
communication
©Miriam Gilbert Storytelling with Numbers
 Visualisations have the power to “show” the story behind the data – and they
Data visualization are nothing new. In fact, one of the best known early data stories is the
visualisation of Napoleon’s disastrous invasion of Russia in 1812 by Charles
and communication Joseph Minard, a French engineer with a flair for “infographics”:

The flow map shows the size of Napoleon’s army at different stages of the campaign combining geography, time, temperature,
the course and direction of the army’s movement, and the number of troops remaining to tell the story of this dreadful campaign:
In 1812, the Grand Army set out from Poland with a force of 422,000; only 100,000 reached Moscow; and only 10,000 returned2.

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©Miriam Gilbert Storytelling with Numbers
Data visualization
and communication
Much of the focus in data visualization
has historically been on exploring and What happened to
analysing data. the other 10%?

But the analysts who use visualization often are

not the decision makers, so they need to
communicate their findings to the decision
makers.

The problem is that many data visualisations

used for communication purposes are bad – as
simple as that. This ranges from many
infographics used for marketing purposes to
certain default graphs in excel or the outputs by
data visualisation tools where it is assumed that
the tools used for analysis are usable for
presentation just as well as for their original
purpose.
Who are the other
7

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©Miriam Gilbert Storytelling with Numbers
What is wrong with
this chart?

Spot at least 6 flaws in this bar

chart*

*Solution in the appendix

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©Miriam Gilbert Storytelling with Numbers
 Data Visualisation
Expressiveness, precision and
accuracy
The right tools
Drawing attention
Guidelines

Visual
communication
©Miriam Gilbert Storytelling with Numbers
 Translating data into visual forms is Accuracy is again different from
Expressiveness called visual encoding. For visual
both expressiveness and precision.
communication to be effective in data
Precision stories, the visualisation needs to
The relationship between accuracy
and precision is particularly
express the encoded data in a
Accuracy meaningful way. This means not
important, as sometimes greater
precision is associated with accuracy,
trying to show every piece of data even when this relationship does not
under the sun but all the facts that exist. An example of the difference is
are relevant. Editorialising should be this:
done explicitly and transparently, for Imagine you are running a charity
example by using colour or other
tombola where participants have to
focus-driving tools or with words.
guess the value of copper coins in a
Editorialising must never be done
underhand using tools such as jar. One participant guesses the
Expressiveness tells the artificial scaling of axis, misleading coins total “£3,234.67” and another
story selection of source data or implying guesses “about £2,000”. If the coins
relationships where there are none. come to £2,054, then the first guess
Precision is about level
of detail is the more precise one but the
Precision is different from second the more accurate one.
Accuracy describes expressiveness and it is concerned
correctness with the level details you want to give. It goes without saying that you
A simple example of precision is the should feel comfortable about the
number of decimal point displayed in accuracy of the data encoded,
a table. Depending on the needs of whereas expressiveness of the level of
the audience, you might opt for more precision and method of encoding
or less decimal points. depend on the circumstances.

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©Miriam Gilbert Storytelling with Numbers
 Data Visualisation
Expressiveness, precision and
accuracy
The right tools
Drawing attention
Guidelines

Visual
communication
©Miriam Gilbert Storytelling with Numbers
 Tables are the right choice if the
Choosing the right audience wants to look up individual
values of a data set. They allow to
tool for the job pick up individual points with great
precision. They can also be useful if
you want to display a very small data
set of up to 10 data points or less.
The two most common forms
to visually encode data is Graphs, on the other hand reveal
with graphs and tables. Both meaningful relationships between
are excellent tools, when the data. Using graphs enables you
chosen for the right task. to see trends, patterns and
exceptions in the underlying data
that might remain hidden if displayed
as a table.

When deciding that a graph is the

best tool to visually display your
story, you need to decide what data
relationships you want to display.
Different graphs work for different
relationship types, so consider:

Do you want to show a comparison?

A distribution? A Composition or a
relationship?

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©Miriam Gilbert Storytelling with Numbers
 Data Visualisation
Expressiveness, precision and
accuracy
The right tools
Drawing attention
Guidelines

Visual
communication
©Miriam Gilbert Storytelling with Numbers
The whole is different
to the sum of its part

Gestalt Theory: how we make

sense of what we see

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Gestalt theory: how
do we make sense
of what we see
Once you have decided on your message, effective visual communication is about showing it to the audience
and this means enabling people to see it effectively .
The presentation needs to play to the strength of visual perception and
minimising its weaknesses. In order to do this, it is necessary to
understand a bit about how visual perception works, i.e. how people see,
how their eyes work.

The eye and visual cortex have Berliner Schule der How does this relate to Data
been likened to a massive parallel
Gestaltpsychologie Storytelling?
processor, feeding into the (Berlin School of Gestalt
human cognitive centres. The psychology), established in the
strength of the human visual early 20th Century. Data stories, by their very definition, include data and
system is that is an unparalleled visuals. Using the principles of Gestalt theory helps
pattern detector but it works to choosing the most appropriate design for these
its own rules. If the patterns are Gestalt means “form”, “patterns” visuals, and avoid confusing mistakes. For example,
presented in one way, we can or “shape”. The Gestalt theory not visually grouping unrelated items or visually
easily see them but in another stipulates that the whole is connecting items where there is no real connection
way, we cannot3. different to the sum of its parts
(NOT more), and that perception All of this allows us to identify what we really need
There is extensive research into is not built up from stimuli when we communicate data - and remove the clutter!
what the rules of perception and sensation (i.e. light from an object .
cognition are, going all the way entering the eye) but is a result of
back to the work by the perceptual organisation.
©Miriam Gilbert Storytelling with Numbers | 20
Making sense of
what we see …
. To explain the phenomenon of perceptual organisation, Gestalt theory established a number of “principles
of perception”. Key ones are:

Applying these principles in business report

might look like this:

Pragnanz Continuation and

Simple patterns are closure
noticed before other, Points, when connected,
more complex ones. result in contours. These
Visual perception contours follow the
reduces patterns to the smoothest path and
simplest possible even trick the eye into
structure, searching for perceiving things that
pithiness are not there. This
includes “completing” a
figure, even if parts are
missing.

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©Miriam Gilbert Storytelling with Numbers
Making sense of
what we see … (cont).

Applying these principles in business report

might look like this:

Common region Connectedness

Elements grouped A connected region of
together in a region are visual properties is
perceived to belong perceived as a single
together unit

Common fate & Synchronicity

Elements that move together or change together
(e.g. blinking lights) are perceived to belong
together.

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©Miriam Gilbert Storytelling with Numbers
Making sense of
what we see … (cont).

Meaningfulness and familiarity

Visual elements are more likely to be perceived as
groups if the groups appear meaningful or
familiar.
The bottom data chart plays on the concept of
familiarity. As the colour RED is associated with
something bad (in many cultures), it draws
attention to the months with poor performance.

©Miriam Gilbert Storytelling with Numbers | 23

Making sense of
what we see … (cont).

Combining the principles of

proximity and similarity
Similarity
Elements that are visually similar, appear grouped together.

Proximity
Elements that are visually
grouped together are
perceived as belonging
together

©Miriam Gilbert Storytelling with Numbers | 24

Pre-attentive
Attributes

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Some elements
Proximity vs. Similarity:
command more Which one wins?
attention than
others:
Pre-attentive attributes
Research into how the human visual system analyses images
discovered a limited set of visual properties that are detected very
rapidly and accurately by low-level visual system. These are
properties are deemed to have pre-attentive
How many fives can
attributes. you spot quickly?

This is important for design of visualizations as it lets us

understand:

 what can be perceived immediately

 what properties are good discriminators
 what can mislead viewers
Knowing this, we can guide attention to the key points in our
story.

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©Miriam Gilbert Storytelling with Numbers
Grabbing attention
There are a total of 12 types of
pre-attentive attributes. We can
use a combination of our
understanding of Gestalt
principles and strategically Line length Line width Orientation Shape
placed pre-attentive attributes
to direct our readers attention
without taking away any
essential information.

2D position Size Additions Enclosure

Only some pre-attentive
attributes are perceived
quantitative. 2D position and
Line length are the strongest, Blinking
though Line width, Size and Flicker
Intensity have limited pre- Direction
attentive quantitative qualities
Intensity Hue Curvature / Motion
form

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©Miriam Gilbert Storytelling with Numbers
Pre-attentive
attributes applied
Fairly accurate perception: We can Limited accuracy in perception: small differences are much
perceive relatively small differences in position or harder to perceive when it comes to angles, slopes and areas.
line length and get a “feel” for the difference.

Intensity and hue can draw attention but on their own they need a
definition to become meaningful, e.g. traffic light designation of red as
“bad” (which itself needs clear definition).

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©Miriam Gilbert Storytelling with Numbers
Pre-attentive Good Data storytelling contain text as well as graphs and
attributes are not tables, so we can use pre-attentive features to highlight
specific sections, make larger chunks of text more digest-
limited to graphs able and direct attention

Bigger elements Slanted words, Making the lines

like letters, letters and of elements like
numbers and number stand out letters and
objects stand out from those with numbers thicker
more than smaller regular lets them stand
ones. orientation. out more.

Choosing a Adding or Changing the hue

different font enclosing letters, (colour) or
changes the shape numbers and intensity of letters
and lets elements objects lets them and numbers
like letters and stand out from makes them stand
numbers stand out those that are not. out.
from others.
But avoid the Ransom Note effect | 29
©Miriam Gilbert Storytelling with Numbers
 Data Visualisation
Expressiveness, precision and
accuracy
The right tools
Drawing attention
Guidelines

Visual
communication
©Miriam Gilbert Storytelling with Numbers
Guidelines for Combine the principles of Gestalt theory, pre-attentive
attributes and generally accepted graphic design principles
effective visual
communication
#1
Only display information
that is relevant to your
message.
Of course, you must include all information that
is relevant to the case in point – never (!)
exclude information simply because it doesn’t
fit your message . If there is such information,
you might have to rethink your argument.
However, many charts (aided by the excesses of
Excel) include superfluous information –
background pictures, numerous colours, 3D
effects, excessive gridlines or labels.

Edward Tufte calls this chartjunk and the

aim is to increase the data:ink ratio ( the
proportion of Ink (or pixels) that is used to
present actual data compared to the total
amount of ink used in the entire display). | 31
©Miriam Gilbert Storytelling with Numbers
Guidelines for
effective visual
communication
#2
Visual differences are
perceived as actual
differences in the data or
underlying message
That means differences in colour for example
should have some meaning to be effective
communication tools – rainbow coloured charts
like this one could imply a link between e.g. the
yellow tinted months, even though no such link
exists.

Therefore limit the use of visual differences to

those points that you want to highlights are
part of your story.

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©Miriam Gilbert Storytelling with Numbers
Guidelines for Bar charts must start at zero to represent data
faithfully
effective visual
communication
#3 People perceive differences in the lengths or 2-D locations of
objects fairly accurately and interpret them as differences in the
Display visual differences in proportion actual values that they represent. The most common area where
to the actual differences in the this is an issue is when bar charts don’t cross at zero.

underlying data
Compare the monthly differences in these two graphs:

The data is the same but the graph on the right seems to say sales in Mar are almost double that of Jan, which is untrue. The
reason is that we cannot help noticing the length of a bar, hence bar charts must always start at zero.
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©Miriam Gilbert Storytelling with Numbers
Guidelines for
effective visual
communication
#4
Visually connecting values
are perceived to imply a
direct relationship in the
underlying value
When we connect data point, e.g. in a line
chart, the viewer interprets the data to have
some form of intrinsic relationship, even if the
data really only is only nominally related.

In those cases, chose a bar charts instead of

connecting lines.

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©Miriam Gilbert Storytelling with Numbers
Guidelines for
effective visual
communication
#5 guide people’s attention
by making some visual
elements more salient

Letting some visual elements “stand out”

drives the viewer’s attention and they will
see those elements as more important than
others.

As we have seen in the section on pre-

attentive attributes, there are number of
ways we can achieve this effect, colour just
being one simple method.

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©Miriam Gilbert Storytelling with Numbers
Guidelines for
effective visual
communication
#6 Combining (also called chunking in psychology) several data
points in a visual pattern assist the brain to retain more
Help your brain to process information information in one go and process it accordingly. The graph is a
by combining multiple facts into a good example of chunking.

single visual pattern

Holding information in the working memory is essential to Making sure that all the relevant information is available within
processing the information. Research has shown that the brain easy eye-span is another aspect of chunking. Remember how
can only hold about 4 chunks of information at any given time annoying it is if a report has related information on separate
in the working memory. pages and you have to keep flipping backwards and forwards?

©Miriam Gilbert Storytelling with Numbers | 36

 Pie charts imply that the
Guidelines for components they show sum up to
the whole. They say that if you add
effective visual all the slices, you get 100% of
whatever you are trying to measure.
communication This might not be correct as shown
in this pie because it misses out on
quite a number of other social
#7
media channels.
Just because some tools
Just like the slices of a pie chart
are popular that does not must represent a whole, they also
make them useful have to be mutually exclusive. As
There are at least five reasons why the soon as values can fall into more
ever popular pie chart (and their cousins, than one category, for example
doughnut and gauges) are often not a when it comes to expressing
good choice when it comes to visually preferences, a pie chart is not the
displaying data, regardless what the right tool.
media tells you.

A common problem with pie charts

is that they cannot show more than
a few categories and remain
effective. While they can work for
up to 4 categories, anything more
than you are ending up with a
pretty pattern, but no real
discernable information.

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©Miriam Gilbert Storytelling with Numbers
Guidelines for How helpful are these two charts?

effective visual Sales 2012

communication
#7 (cont)…
if in doubt, stay off the pies

Under most circumstances, pies are hard to read.

It’s because we are not very good at judging
angles other than 90°, 180° and 270°. It makes it 1st Qtr 2nd Qtr 3rd Qtr 4th Qtr
difficult to compare the relative size of slices–
and when comparing different pie charts it is
almost impossible to draw sensible conclusions.
Things get even worse when visual distortions
are applied to pretty-fy the charts to make them Sales 2013
more “interesting”.
Particular culprits are the infamous 3D effect and
the exploding pie. When faced with these kind of
charts, you will find that most people will simply
focus on the numbers, trying their best to ignore
the actual chart – make the whole visualization
pretty pointless

©Miriam Gilbert Storytelling with Numbers 1st Qtr 2nd Qtr 3rd Qtr 4th Qtr | 38
Guidelines for
effective visual
communication
#8 Crowding too many visual
elements into one space
reduces the visual impact of
all elements

White space is the space that exists, The biggest mistake most people
most frequently behind and around make is seeing white space as
forms, in a work of art, graphic something that must be filled in—as
design or other form of visual something that is wasted unless it is
communication. occupied with more elements. But
white space makes the positive
The term white space derives from elements of a visual communication
the newspaper and magazine print design stand out and avoids clutter
industry. Historically, resources like The intentional use of space does
paper were scarce and printing was not just lead to better aesthetic
expensive, and publishers tried to qualities; it’s a powerful tool for
pack as much information on every directing the eye. White space, then,
page. It was only in the early 1900’s is absolutely crucial for obtaining
that white space was “officially” clarity in your message.
recognised and important design
element. ©Miriam Gilbert Storytelling with Numbers | 39
 Narrative
Story structure
Storyboarding content and
layout
Telling your story

Storytelling

©Miriam Gilbert Storytelling with Numbers

 When it comes to preparing to communicate with others, most of us look
Create a narrative at the content and say to ourselves: this is important stuff, I must tell
others…. It’s called being content led but to really engage with your
around your audience, turn it into an audience led one. We do that by focusing clearly
on the what you want from your audience as a result of your
message communication. It’s called the Most Important Point.

So right before you start, before putting pen to paper, ask yourself these
4 questions:

• What do you want the audience to do as a result of your

presentation? (Use action verbs.)
• What does your audience need to know in order to do that?
• What does your audience need to feel in order to do that?
• Why would your audience want to do what you want them to do?
(What is in it for them?)

Presenting data – even as visualisation – is not

enough.

Consider how to build a story around your core message. Building a

narrative includes answering the “how?”, the “why?” and the often missed
“so what?” (some traditional storytelling would also ask “who”, though
this might not be the case for business reports.

This does not only convey a lot of information in a short space and make
complex insights accessible, but a solid narrative can create order and
make sense of a lot of information – and set the direction for further
investigation | 41
©Miriam Gilbert Storytelling with Numbers
The most powerful
stories are about
people
In business settings, the best stories are those
that focus on real people. Yes, even a
presentation or report with lots of facts and
data is still about real people.

Of course, the content of your presentation is determined by the information you want to communicate, and your Most Important
Point. But to make sure that your message does indeed get heard about the noise, you need to tell it in a compelling manner.
Using stories, you can either wrap your whole communication into a story format (maybe tell the story of how your project has
overcome great adversity or how your business is about to embark on a brand new direction) or sprinkle some stories into your
presentations. Analogies and comparisons work well here, too.

Finding inspiration for your story: his famous launch of the Macbook Air didn’t go on about the
slimness of the laptop in millimetres. Instead, all he said that it
Specifically for numbers and data, try comparing or contrasting was so thin, it fits into one of those brown envelops you see
the numbers with something familiar. For Example: scaling floating around the office. Then, he took out a brown envelop
down works by breaking the grandness of a number down and showed how the laptop fits inside..
into something that everyone understands, e.g. the price of a Putting numbers into context: is another useful tool, e.g. if
coffee. (e.g. the total is less than the price of just one cup a dealing with the financial impact of a project change request,
day). set it into context of the overall cost, or the total numbers of
Comparing can work in a number of ways. Take Steve Job, in change requests, depending on the point you want to make.

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©Miriam Gilbert Storytelling with Numbers
Language matters

A quick word on language:

A powerful way of engaging your audience is to use Language Of The

Senses. That means telling the audience what you or the character in
your story hears, sees, smells, feels, senses and thinks. When you
L ANGUAGE
‘

trigger a sense, you bring you audience with you.

The most powerful stories appeal to at least 2 senses. Try this example: OF
The extraordinary project board meeting was well attended, even
though the torrential rain drumming against the window had caused a
few delays. Bob, the senior programme manager checked his papers,
the papers rustling as he shuffled his notes. The room was unusually
T HE
S ENSES
quiet – none of the normal small talk and banter over last night’s
football results. Bob could sense the tension in his fellow board
members and he was glad he had spent the extra time preparing for
this presentation…

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©Miriam Gilbert Storytelling with Numbers
 Narrative
Story structure
Storyboarding content and
layout
Telling your story

Storytelling

©Miriam Gilbert Storytelling with Numbers

 Translating this to business reports means we need to provide context (aka
Giving your the beginning of the story), enable discovery (the middle) and provide
some conclusion (the end).
message some
Although structures in business reports contain different elements
structure makes it compared to story structures in creative industries, they are important none
the less. Establishing structure and flow in data stories makes sure:
memorable
 You actually get your message across,

Don’t bury your message:  The sequence of information makes sense and supports your
Make sure you highlight your key message
point at the front of your story,
e.g. in the headline or graph title  You present the right level of complexity and detail at the right
time

 Ensures you present all of the relevant information and no more

Beginning End

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A beginning,
A middle, and
An end
The most basic story structure is familiar
to us all. It consists of a beginning, a
middle and an end.

The beginning (context) Mixing graphical representation with narrative enables you to
convey your message while still allowing your audience their own
journey of discovery. This is particularly powerful in interactive
To allow readers of a report to grasp its full meaning and
settings but as our example shows, can be done with
insights, they need to have a point of reference. That reference is
conventional reports, too.
the context in which reported events took place or the
assumptions on which forecasts are based. The context could be
actual performance vs plan, this period’s performance vs prior The end (conclusion)
ones, explaining what events led to the current situation or any
other relevant background information. Many business reports leave the reader with the question “so
The middle (discovery) what?”. To achieve their full purpose, effective Data Storytelling
must go beyond simple display of data but answer the so-what-
question. This means including a conclusion, recommendation,
To make your message compelling, make the middle about
forecast or next step suggestions. Yes, it means you have to have
discovery. Explain a conflict, the hurdles that had to be overcome
an opinion and a message – and as we have seen earlier, those
and potentially the wrong turns that were taken in arriving at the
real proposed solution and call to action.
aspects differentiate you from a trained monkey.
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©Miriam Gilbert Storytelling with Numbers
 Narrative
Story structure
Storyboarding content and
layout
Telling your story

Storytelling

©Miriam Gilbert Storytelling with Numbers

Visual outlines via A Storyboard is simply the visual layout of how you are going
to tell your story..
Storyboarding

Storyboards are valuable for Storyboarding for Data Stories in business reports relates two aspects:
the structure and flow of each story content in the report and the
four reasons: layout of the pages of the report:.

 Storyboards force you to assimilate your

information, thus causing you to clarify the
logic of your hypothesis and supporting
assertions

 Storyboards help you to focus the analysis

 A storyboard can identify gaps in your

analysis

 Storyboards prevent work that is unnecessary

or redundant (story creep)

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©Miriam Gilbert Storytelling with Numbers
 1. For each individual story, write the core message that you
Five simple steps to wish to convey on one post-it.

content storyboards: 2. Then write down all the supporting points and other relevant
information you wish to include in your story on further post-
its.
The quickest and most useful way to 3. Start physically arranging your post-its to give your story
storyboard is to go back to pen and structure, checking back that it makes logical sense to an
paper. uninitiated reader. There is no one right way – use one that
makes sense to you and your material
Post-its are invaluable here, though
some people prefer to write on a 4. Remove any superfluous information – does the story still
make sense?
whiteboard.
5. Check back: is your message clear and concise?

Two examples of content Storyboards

Central Core Supporting Supporting

message message point point

Supporting Supporting Supporting Supporting

Conclusion
point point point point
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©Miriam Gilbert Storytelling with Numbers
Creating effective Mistake #1
Placing information in places that don’t fit its
layouts importance or does not support its use

Research shows that not all parts of a page, whether printed or on-screen are
equal when it comes to drawing attention and being perceived as important.
Storyboarding layout and format With this in mind, it is important to maximise on your page real-estate.
of the page helps avoiding
common mistakes: Emphasised Neutral

Neutral De-emphasised

This means you don’t want to put less important information in the top
left hand quadrant, like a company logo or a legend. Keep them for
the bottom right.

The arrows indicate the emphasis with which most people first scan
down a page, then across if the page contains written as well as other
visual elements. It’s a legacy of webpage design that has permeated
other media.
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©Miriam Gilbert Storytelling with Numbers
 Mistake #2 Mistake #4
Creating effective Including items that Failing to visually link
layouts serve no useful purpose contents and other
items that are related
As per visual communication
guideline #1, only include elements
Even the best plans fail and
that are relevant. Storyboarding your
sometimes you cannot keep all the
page layout will help you identifying
relevant information in one place. In
those that are not.
that case, you can help the reader by
providing other clues, such as using
Mistake #3 common colours or shapes.
Storyboarding lets you identify where
Separating content
this is necessary
excessively
Mistake #5
How often have you found yourself
reading a report where important Visually suggesting
information was spread over several links between contents
pages (or separated visually on one
page), making comparisons difficult?
that are not related
Storyboarding your layout lets you
plan how to keep related information This is the flip side of the point above:
together. make sure you don’t visually link
those items which are discrete from
another.

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©Miriam Gilbert Storytelling with Numbers
 Narrative
Story structure
Storyboarding content and
layout
Telling your story

Storytelling

©Miriam Gilbert Storytelling with Numbers

Telling a story with just one graph
Background: use text to explain the context and the problem you are exploring

CHA R T TI TLE: PR ESEN T YOU R STOR Y HEA DLI N E

Legend
call-outs are great to highlight
30 trends or important points
22
Axis title

25

20

15

10

0
AxisQ 1title Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2

Details: Data source and parameters

Method
Assumptions
Insights: give more detail on your headlines, summarise your findings, explain your interpretations and
predidictions, help the reader to interprete your visualisation and understand the message.
Recommendations:
use text with pre-attentive attributes to highlight your message
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©Miriam Gilbert Storytelling with Numbers

Telling a story with
multiple graphs
This visualisation appeared in the NY Times, 5 Dec 2009. It covered issues around emissions and other factors of climate change in
preparation for the Copenhagen climate conference (7/12 – 18/12/2009). Although the original is an interactive web-based
visualisation, these slides show how simple graphs can tell an intriguing story even in static form.

Copenhagen: Emissions, Treaties and Impacts

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©Miriam Gilbert Storytelling with Numbers
Telling a story with
multiple graphs

Please note, the original visualisation

contains a wealth of additional data,
information and messages which have not
been reproduced here for brevity’s sake.
You can find the original at:

Copenhagen: Emissions, Treaties

and Impacts

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©Miriam Gilbert Storytelling with Numbers
Appendix
Six flaws in the graph:

1. The value axis does not start at zero

2. Using uneven time periods
3. 3D effect
4. Excessive use of $-sign
5. X-axis description is not helpful
6. No core message / key point

End Notes:

1 Karen Dietz, Lori Silverman: Business Storytelling for Dummies, 2013, p.17
2 Michael Sandberg, Data Viz blog, datavizblog.com, 2013/05/26/
3 Colin Ware: Information Visualization: Perception for Design (Interactive Technologies), 2004, p36

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Resources
and credits
Acknowledgement:
The work in this booklet is influenced by many sources, with especial acknowledgement for the learnings from the
following:

Edward Tufte: The Visual Display of Quantitative Information, 2001

Stephen Few: Information Dashboard Design, 2013
Stephen Few: Now you see it, 2009
Colin Ware: Information Visualization: Perception for Design (Interactive Technologies), 2004
Karen Dietz, Lori Silverman: Business Storytelling for Dummies, 2013
Geni Whitehouse: How to make a boring subject interesting, 2009
Garr Reynolds: Presentation Zen Design, 2010
Randall Bolten: Painting with Numbers, 2012
Nancy Duarte: Resonate, Present visual stories that transform audiences, 2013

Icons & Images

Cave Painting by Luke Anthony Firth from The Noun Project
Other icons: The Noun Project (www.nounproject.com) under creative comments licence or the author’s own

Bev Doolittle, The forest has eyes, 1985

Copenhagen, Emissions, Treaties and Impacts: NY Times, 5 Dec 2009

Pie charts and Facebook graph: Flickr, under creative commons licence

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©Miriam Gilbert Storytelling with Numbers
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Storytelling with Numbers