- Bar Charts: Ideal for comparing discrete categories or values.
- Line Graphs: Suitable for showing trends over time.
- Pie Charts: Useful for displaying parts of a whole (when there are few categories).
- Scatter Plots: Good for showing relationships or distributions between two variables.
- Heatmaps: Effective for visualising patterns in large data sets.
Data Visualisation Best Practices: Tell a Story with Your Data
Data visualisation turns complex data into clear, digestible insights. When applied correctly, it can transform the way your audience interacts with your data, helping them to maximise its potential. However, there is an art to data visualisation that requires you to find the right balance, so it complements, rather than confuses, the viewer.
We take a closer look at data visualisation best practises to give you some tips on how you can present data effectively and allow your audience to act on its insights.
Why is Data Visualisation Important?
Data visualisation is crucial for understanding large volumes of data. Well-designed charts and graphs can reveal trends, patterns, and correlations that might not be immediately obvious.
It can be used to simplify and complex datasets to make it feel more digestible, whilst helping stakeholders to make informed decisions and drive action based on insights.
What Are the Best Practices for Data Visualisation?
Here are 5 things to consider before applying data visualisation:
1. Try to Tell a Story
Data has more meaning once your audience understands how it is relevant to them and their professions. The best visualisations often show metrics in comparison to dynamic thresholds, which gives a clearer indication of how the information should be interpreted.
Your audience will be reviewing your data in the hope of extracting relevant insights that can inform their decision making. The clearer your data story, the easier it is for them to know where action is needed.
2. Choose the Right Type of Chart
Different types of data require different visualisations. Choosing the right chart type is essential to communicating your message clearly:
Try to limit the number of visualisations you use in each section of the data, as inserting too many can be confusing and counterproductive to the dataset as a whole.
3. Keep It Simple
Focus on what matters most and keep visualisations as simple and straightforward as possible. Too much detail can confuse the audience, so prioritise clarity and simplicity to ensure your message is easily understood.
Overcomplicating the presentation of your data will increase the time it takes your audience to analyse and understand it. If they are using other sources that can provide similar information but in a more digestible way, it could mean they are less likely to return to your data reports in the future.
4. Use Colour Effectively
Colour plays a key role in data visualisation by highlighting important data and making the visualisation more engaging. However, overusing colour or using too many variants can be distracting. Use colour sparingly and ensure that colour choices are consistent and meaningful.
Your choice of colour should be influenced by your audience. For example, the tone you use for an executive audience will need to be different to a dataset intended for research and development teams.
5. Label Clearly and Provide Context
Ensure all axes, data points, and key elements are clearly labelled. This can add much needed context to key parts of the data, making it easier for your audience to digest and apply.
You can also include things like explanations of the period, units of measurement, or source of the data, to give your audience the full picture. Making them relevant to the data you are presenting will create additional layers of meaning and potential use.
Give Meaning To Your Data
You can elevate the insights your data has to offer by complementing it with relevant visual pointers. Keep things simple without too much colour,, try to tell a story and use labels and context to guide your audience as they assess the data.
Informally is here to help you get more from your data, offering support with everything from optimising and packaging it for sale in an online data sharing platform. To find out how, get in touch and we'll find a solution that works for you.