The Power of Data Storytelling

Data storytelling is the process of building a compelling narrative based on data and analytics into an understandable story to help or support business decisions and actions. Data storytelling focuses on creating valuable insights and creating a bridge between data analytics and decision makers or stakeholders.

Storytelling is such an important skill nowadays because it helps us understand others. Data storytelling works in a similar way but has many other benefits. Through it we can simplify complicated information that sometimes can be very overwhelming especially for people who are not trained to read the data gathered. It frames the information in a way that is clear and memorable making it easy to be processed and comprehended. Effective data storytelling can really influence business decisions as it adds value to your stakeholders and the industry you are working in by providing a human touch, by interpreting complex information, and highlighting essential key points.

The elements of data storytelling

There are three key elements that work together to communicate your data storytelling: narrative, visuals and data. By combining these elements, you can create an emotional response in your audience that plays a significant role in decision-making and driving change.

Data: Data storytelling should be based on qualitative and complete data. We are not naturally attracted to analytics, but good data allows us to establish baselines, benchmarks and goals.

Narrative: Data narrative is a summary of a set of data that draws conclusions and make comparisons to explain the meaning of the data. Narrative is the capability to convey important information and critical insights from data.

Visuals: Data visuals helps transform boundless amounts of data into something simpler and easy understandable. By combining visuals with the narrative, it is easier to engage with your stakeholders and support them in their business decisions. With visuals you can reveal patters, trends, interpret results and articulate insights. Visuals enable real time customer analytics, and it supports with forecasting future trends with accuracy.

At DDC data quality is paramount and every member of the team goes the extra mile to ensure that we gather and provide clear and complete information. Getting trained on data storytelling helps us to support our clients with meaningful and relevant insights. By using data storytelling, we ensure that our key findings are accessible to our stakeholders and that we can assist with interpreting otherwise complex information for our valuable clients.