How to make your data count – an expert answers

There are many challenges when we’re presenting data in our communications. I think one of them is like any kind of communication, really, have we really thought about our audience, what we’re trying to achieve, our overall key points? Because that data should be there to support our overall aims and should really resonate with the audience we have in mind.

Sometimes it can be tempting just to shove a load of data in because we think maybe it’s somehow more impressive or it could look sophisticated. But we’re trying to really make the complex clear, not the clear complex. So one of the challenges is always going back to that same old discipline of who am I communicating with, what am I trying to achieve?

And then asking yourself, okay, to achieve my goal, what’s the best way of doing that? Is it words? Is it data? Is it a mixture of the two? Is it visualised data? When it comes to visualising data, it can be a challenge for some people to really understand or identify what’s the best form of of visual to use. Should it be a bar chart? Should it be a line graph, scattergram? There many, many options. One of the things I hear a lot when I work with people is they’re not quite sure. They almost feel a little bit intimidated about which type to use.

If we’re using visuals, once we’ve chosen one, trying to keep it relatively straightforward and simple. There is a temptation again to want to make it in our minds sophisticated, which really comes across as unnecessarily complex.

And one last thing I would say, if you are presenting numbers within text, sometimes we have, for example, ‘This was up by 12 per cent this quarter, this compared with a rise of 40 per cent from the quarter before’ and so on, so on, so on. It’s really hard for the reader to grasp it. So if you’re in that situation, be more selective, just focus on the numbers that matter, but also draw out the implications. What does that mean? What does that percentage rise mean? Is there a trend? Are there risks to that? So we’re trying to draw out the impact and not just throw data at our readers. We have to join the dots for them as well.

With data visualisation, there are quite a few things that people find difficult. One is really trying to make the graphic really intuitive for the audience.

You could do the test on yourself, if you’re looking at a graphic of some sort, if you find yourself frowning, then it may not be succeeding because it really should be intuitive. So there are a few key ingredients that we need to pay attention to to make our data visualisations really have the impact we want. One is to make sure the message comes out really clearly in that visual.

When someone is creating some sort of graphic, they imagine someone first they’re reading the text, and then they’re going to go to the graphic, and then they’re going to read some more text. But in fact, what happens is people tend to jump around, their eyes are drawn to a visual. So they might start with a visual, and if that’s interesting, then they might read the text.

So we have to make sure that the visuals we present tell a story by themselves, because we must assume that some readers will only read that. And if that doesn’t make sense by itself, then the risk increases that they won’t go into your narrative.

So one of the key things is bringing out the message, keeping it very simple, removing any clutter, anything unnecessary. And then trying to direct the eye. Where do you want them to look? And we can do that in lots of different ways, there’s lots of different ways you can direct the eye to say, look at that bit, this is where I want you to look, and this supports the overall message.

Another potential pitfall when visualising data is using the wrong type of graphic or the wrong type of chart. We have these different options available to us, and it can be a bit tricky to know what’s the best tool for the job. So again, it goes back to what am I trying to achieve? What’s the message? Am I trying to show there’s a trend here? If it’s a trend, maybe a line graph would be a good choice. Am I trying to compare quantities over time? Maybe a bar chart. Am I showing proportions? It’d be a pie chart.

So it’s really going back and make sure the dog is wagging the tail. What I mean by that, sometimes people get fixated. I want to use this type of graphic. And that’s almost leading them rather than thinking what am I trying to achieve? What’s the message here? What’s the best tool for the job? So it really, everything falls into place if we can go back to our audience focus and our objectives.

Another challenge to be aware of is perhaps sometimes the overuse of visuals when actually words might be better. For example, if there’s something just very simple thing to express – ‘Item A is a hundred percent more expensive than item B’ – we can very simply express that in a sentence. And we don’t need a bar chart with two columns to make that point. So by all means use all the tools at your disposal, but sometimes simple words can also be the best choice.

Well, stories are a really powerful form of business communication and I think probably often underused and we can use stories in many, many contexts in business.

But when it comes to using data as part of that, you know, really the options are very broad because in any kind of story journey, we have some sort of beginning. What’s the current situation? There’s usually some sort of issue to address or a problem to solve or an opportunity to take advantage of. And then there’s a way forward. I mean, we can make it more complicated than that, but that’s the essence of a story structure.

You can use data at any part of that journey, at one part or all parts. But the key thing is when we are using it is we have to make it meaningful. So what does this data mean for the people reading it?

And we have to make sure that the data we’re using supports the particular part of the story we’re at at the time. So making it meaningful means drawing out the implications, drawing and giving any insight, giving any impact and not just giving data on its own.