6 Tips for Creating Effective Data Visualizations

The reality of things has completely changed, making data visualization a necessary aspect when you intend to make any decision that impacts your business growth. Data is no longer for data professionals; it now serves as the center of all decisions you make on your daily operations. It’s vital to ensure that you get access to high-value data insights essential to your business transformation.

Top Data Visualization Tips For Engaging Design

1. Utilize Colors to differentiate, compare and more.
2. Make organized Visualizations, Intuitive and Consistent.
3. Identify Visualization Audience and Objectives.
4. Give Context to have Clarity
5. Avoid misleading visualizations.
6. Create an Interesting story

With the current situation whereby approximately 4.54 billion people are fully using the internet daily, you need to be keen on the data visualization designs you use to communicate important information to your market audience. This is because when delivering information, you need to ensure most of the people grasp the intended information and take the respective action.

To make your data easy to read and interpret, you need to have the right data visualization tools that can enable you to create the most appropriate design that will greatly contribute to the rate at which the information is consumed. When you talk of the most appropriate data visualization tools. 

Data visualization plays a huge role in ensuring that complex data has been broken down into an easy-to-read format to convey important information. Visualization design cuts at the core of the data, placing it in a better version that does not read further interpretation during the consumption of the information. Before posting your data to the market audience, you need to ensure that every visual counts.

What is Data Visualization?

Data visualization is the process of converting data and numbers into visuals such as maps, charts, and graphs. This is mainly done because the human brain can easily digest visual content and comprehend visual content easily and faster. Remember that data visualization is a key aspect of any strategy that intends to secure significant growth height.

Researchers have uncovered that 90% of the information transmitted to the brain is visual. To enable the human brain to process crucial information easily, you need to abide by the best practices of visualization to ensure that the brain has an easy task of digesting and understanding the presented information.

6 Tips for Creating Effective Data Visualizations

Data visualization is one of the most powerful tools only if you execute the process perfectly. Remember that a poorly designed data visualization can do a lot of harm compared to good, as many people believe. This means you must ensure that all your visualizations are done perfectly to avoid inconveniences. Below are some of the top ways to create excellent visualization designs you need to know.

Utilize Colors to Differentiate, Compare and More

Colors cover a crucial role when you want to create exceptional visuals. However, they can either make or break your final output depending on how you align them across your content. Poor alignment of colors can destruct readers or even confuse them when interpreting the displayed visual. When using colors, ensure that you remain consistent when delivering information.

Do not interchange colors from time to time on the same visual to avoid confusing your market audience. Avoid using too many colors and only maintain the primary colors that represent the name of your business brand. Also, focus on the high contrast colors rather than low contrast to make your visuals stand out from the rest. This will make it easier for your audience to read the portrayed information.

When choosing some of the best colors to use in your visualization, ensure that you are as inclusive as possible. Remember that not everybody views colors from your perspective, especially those suffering from color blindness. You can use ChartExpo to help you choose the best colors that suit your visuals.

Make Organized Visualizations, Intuitive and Consistent

The goal of using data visualization is to ensure that data has been presented in an orderly manner that is easy to read and understand. Visuals only make sense when they have been presented in an orderly way; they are intuitive and consistent. When designing the visuals, you are mainly working to enhance clarity rather than anything else.

You need to ensure that your viewers do not experience any challenges when reading through the content. The data needs to be aligned in a logical order. It may include an alphabetical manner or any other organizational criteria depending on the nature of the data you have collected.

In addition, you need to consider the data hierarchy to ensure that every element has been placed in its accurate position to make the data attractive. This also included things such as fonts, and colors, among other essential elements that contribute to the presentation of interactive data.

Identify Visualization Audience and Objectives

Before you get to the point of choosing the best data visualization design, you need to ensure that you have a clear view of your market audience and your business objectives. This is an essential part since it will ensure that all the visuals are perfectly aligned with whatever you intend to attain in business, and your audience can easily read and comprehend the information.

The primary goal is to make it easier for your readers to make an informed business decision based on the data ideas that you have shared. To make it easier, you can develop a series of questions you intend to answer by generating responses that offer detailed insights that can be fully comprehended by the readers and your market audience in general.

Besides, you need to ensure that your target audience is a bit informed about the kind of information you are presenting to them. This will simplify the process of choosing the best visualization that is perfectly aligned with your goals and business objectives.

Give Context to have Clarity

Context is a crucial element that you need to put in mind whenever you are conveying information. Remember that data does not exist in a vacuum manner, which means that without context the target audience is likely to misinterpret the information. To incorporate the visual context, you should add a specific benchmark, such as a zero baseline.

In addition, you can opt to incorporate some short explanatory notes that are mainly meant to enhance emphasis on the data displayed. You can as well do the work by comparing the existing data against the past. This enables the data viewers to tell exactly what they are seeing and what they know at a personal level.

Note that the scale you choose as your baseline also significantly impacts the final data output. The ultimate goal is to ensure that you have a clear context that will enable your viewers to get clear meaning from the data you present.

Avoid Misleading Visualizations

Most people enjoy reading through actionable content rather than poorly formatted content that does not portray meaningful information. When visuals are arranged compellingly, they tend to portray the knowledge that is essential in decision-making. Once readers identify the power of reading your visuals, it becomes easier to communicate important information without any hustle. There are a bunch of tools available to create insightful and actionable visualizations which include:

• Tableau
• PowerBI
• ChartExpo
• Chartio
• Google Data Studio
• Visme

Instead of just presenting information, you need to ensure that every word counts and the information displayed can be converted into knowledge that impacts the general growth of your business and your customers in general. The more people get it easier to comprehend your call to action, the more it becomes easier for them to interact with your business brand.

Ensure that every aspect of your visualization is well spelled out to ensure that readers get a clear picture of the entire story while reading the content. This will enhance the competitiveness of your brand and make it stand out from the rest.

Create an Interesting Story

Always remember that nobody has the time and energy to read boring content. Your responsibility is to ensure that you develop an interesting story that will make your audience hooked and ask for more. Once you have the story in your hands, you need to split it into categories depending on the nature of the visuals you intend to create.

Ensure that every element of your visual contributes to the story you intend to tell your audience. The visualizations should be arranged in a manner that the story is portrayed in a continuous nature to ensure that viewers get a clear grip on every data element. When everything is clear and easy to read, the readers can easily create conclusions vital for their well-being.

If you do not know the best way of passing the story using visuals, you need to do it practically by testing it with different people within your team before concluding what works well for you. Also, this will give you a better picture of what it takes to convey information in a better way that can easily be read and digested by your target audience

Conclusion

Data visualization tools significantly impact the design you choose to present your data. When you choose a poor data visualization design, your data may end up being skewed. The only secret is to ensure that you have the most appropriate tools that occupy an extended position that will dramatically impact the design you choose to use in your data presentation. 

FAQs on Effective Data Visualizations

What are Data Visualizations?

Data visualization is the process of converting data and numbers into visuals such as maps, charts, and graphs. This is mainly done because the human brain can easily digest visual content and comprehend visual content easily and faster. Remember that data visualization is a key aspect of any strategy that intends to secure significant growth height.

What are the Elements of Data Visualization?

You can achieve effective data visualization when these elements are present:

Information

Story

Goal 

Visual Form

What are the other tips for Effective Data Visualization?

Keep it Simple

To choose the Correct Chart and Graph

Use intuitive visual cues

Avoid distracting elements

Use data points carefully

Use visual hierarchy effectively