2025-08-13 22:55:27
Have you ever struggled to do something you know you want—or need—to do? For example, is it hard to get to the gym regularly, even though you know it's good for your health? Or perhaps you keep putting off practicing that second language, even though you know it's essential for your learning progress. You’re not alone! Knowing what we should do is one thing; actually doing it is another.
I was recently reminded of this challenge while reviewing some feedback about our on-demand course. (I read every single response!) The person said:
”The content was great and a good refresher of things I already knew
...even if I don't always remember to apply them.”
When you commit to doing something regularly, you transform a simple good intention into a lasting habit, and that’s where real growth and change begin. Still, building those habits can be difficult without support.
If you find yourself struggling to implement better data storytelling techniques and want to make practicing effective communication a goal, I invite you to join our upcoming 8-week online course. Our final cohort of the year is about to commence on September 15, making it the perfect next step to deepen your skills in a structured, guided, and practice-driven environment.
Over eight short weeks, my colleague Simon and I will teach you a practical, repeatable process to plan your data story, distill the critical components, create effective graphs, slides, and presentations, and communicate it all in a way that gets your audience’s attention, builds understanding, and drives action. We’ll guide you on this journey with live lectures (recordings will be available) that provide opportunities to practice, ask questions, and get feedback. We’ll also have two optional weekly office hours sessions to ensure you are supported.
The highlight of the course is the final project, which gives you a chance to apply the lessons to a dataset of your own choosing. This can be anything from a passion project to a work-related communication (appropriately anonymized). Each week, assignments build toward the final deliverable, allowing you to make steady progress with ongoing feedback—increasing the chances of success.
Take, for example, the following slide, which is representative of the sorts of projects attendees chose to work on throughout the course. (We’ve anonymized some of the details for confidentiality.) For context, the visual came from an analyst at a large organization that recently conducted an advertising test to drive incremental orders. This was what one of their team members had compiled to show the results.
This slide was not driving the intended action that the creator had hoped for. Below, I share how the process we teach in the course was used to improve the effectiveness of this communication.
WEEK 1: THE ART OF FEEDBACK
The first topic in our course is “feedback,” because of its vital role in learning and skill development. We spend time understanding who and how to ask for useful input, practice giving thoughtful feedback to others, and start to see the value of developing a critical eye to improve our own work. Giving and receiving feedback is a big part of participating in the course itself.
Considering the advertising example above, we could tell our colleague that we appreciate the text and red boxes that emphasize what they wanted to highlight. Then, we could ask them if they considered visualizing some of the data, rather than showing everything in a table.
WEEK 2: GRAPHS
While suggesting visualizing the data is a good idea, it can be a daunting task for some, because there are many different types of graphs. In the second week of the course, we explore visuals. We focus mainly on those that are popular in business settings, but also offer avenues to learn about others that are less prevalent.
For example, below are several ways to highlight the increase in new customers during the advertising test.
WEEK 3: AUDIENCE & MESSAGE
We take a step back from graphs in the third week to assess the context of our communication. Specifically: who is our audience, and what do we need them to do? We learn about and practice identifying a specific audience, understanding their needs, and thoughtfully crafting our message.
In the advertising test scenario, our audience is a single person: the marketing manager. The big idea we want to communicate is: The aggressive ad spend test increased orders but at a markedly higher customer acquisition cost, so we recommend pausing to refine our targeting strategy for more efficient growth before resuming investment.
WEEK 4: LOW-TECH PLANNING
Halfway through the course, we introduce one of our favorite low-tech planning processes: storyboarding. Students develop, share, and get feedback on their storyboard for their course project from classmates in a small group setting. In our previous cohorts, this has often been a favorite exercise—participants begin to crystallize their thinking and hear reactions from an unfamiliar audience.
With our audience and message in mind, an initial storyboard for the advertising example first explains the test design and results, then offers a recommended next step.
WEEK 5: VISUAL DESIGN
We turn our attention back to graphs in the fifth week of the course, in which we learn how to take our visuals to the next level with the simple—yet powerful—design tactics.
After applying declutter and focus techniques, the original busy data table for the ad spend test is transformed into something more straightforward, giving us the opportunity to indicate where we want our audience to look.
WEEK 6: STORY
In week 6, we explore how to use concepts of storytelling for communicating effectively with data. Participants get an opportunity to apply these concepts as they iterate and get feedback on their storyboards.
Reconsidering our audience and the tension in our ad spend story, the original storyboard is rearranged into a narrative arc (visually represented below) that prioritizes the needs and interests of the audience.
WEEK 7: PRESENTATION PLANNING
During our penultimate week, we focus on building out the overall structure of the final presentation—bringing the low-tech strategies we’ve explored during the course to life using slideware applications.
Sticking with the corporate brand template and applying active takeaway slide titles, a digital skeleton for the ad test presentation starts to take shape.
WEEK 8: PRESENTING DATA STORIES
In our final week of the course, our primary focus is on you. As the narrator, you play a critical role in ensuring that the data stories that you build are communicated effectively and persuasively.
After refining the slide content and practicing the delivery, the final presentation for the ad spend results comes together. Here are the final slides and corresponding talking points:
“Hi everyone. Thanks for joining me today. The goal of the call is to discuss the findings from our recent ad test and use the results to inform our marketing strategy going forward.”
“Quick reminder: this is the question we set out to answer in the test: will higher ad spend yield more orders and acquire new customers?
The short answer is yes, we can get more orders, but this might not be our best approach to acquisition and growth. Let me explain…”
“Our test was aggressive—we spent 4x the baseline (pre-period) amount to assess the impact on orders compared to the prior period.”
“Let’s look at the order impact now.
We’ll consider three two-week periods here on the horizontal x-axis—the baseline period from March 22 to April 4 before the spending increase, compared to two testing periods (two weeks each) which had the increased investment.”
“For context, the baseline orders were 439. This is pretty consistent with prior weeks and the same period in prior years. For the test to be successful, we should see higher orders during the two testing periods…”
“...and we did see an 8% increase. This is a modest increase and lower than we hoped for, given the investment.
Despite this, there was an interesting finding when we looked at the type of customers. I’ll now break down each of these bars by new and existing customers.”
“To show this, I am going to switch to look at the percent of total orders in a 100% stacked bar chart.”
“As I layer on the data, we do see the mix of new customers was higher during the testing periods (almost double), which is great news!
However, it came at an added expense, and we saw our customer acquisition cost, or CAC, markedly increase during the testing period.”
“For context, we went from a CAC of $1.1K in the prior period up to…”
“....$2.2K during the testing periods. More new customers are great, but at double the cost?”
“So, to answer the original question: yes, more spending drives orders and brings new customers, but it drives up the CAC substantially. Therefore, we don’t think it's an efficient use of our marketing dollars. Instead, we recommend...”
“Pausing tests for now and developing better targeting strategies to more efficiently attract new customers.
Let’s discuss.”
Below, on the right, is a send-around summary slide of the ad spend story—check out the difference from the original!
Would you like the satisfaction of your own presentation transformation? We have a few remaining spots in our final cohort of 2025—starting on September 15. This is your opportunity to give yourself the time and space to develop your skills further and put them into practice.
Register for our upcoming 8-week online course by August 22, 2025 and enjoy an exclusive 25% discount. Spots are limited—secure your place today and don’t miss out!
2025-08-04 22:29:00
We’re now less than two months away from the release of our upcoming book storytelling with data: before & after, and the whole team is getting excited. We’ve already shared three sample chapters with you, which you can still download here if you haven’t had the chance yet.
As you might guess, putting together a book like this means sorting through dozens of potential examples to include. In some ways, you could think of the final set as our 20 favorites…but that’s not exactly how it worked. We had to be more strategic—showing a range of use cases, pulling examples from different industries, and making sure we featured a variety of graph types across the solutions. It wasn’t just a popularity contest.
If it had been a popularity contest, though, the makeover I’m about to share would’ve made the list for sure. It’s one of my all-time favorites from a client engagement a few years back. To share it here, I’ve anonymized the details—updated the years and made a few subtle changes to the specifics.
In this case, our client was responsible for forecasting imports and exports from a specific country over a 15-year window. No small task—it involved a ton of variables. They often ran multiple models to account for different scenarios. But after they landed on a forecast, something big happened: regime change. A surprise election result put an unexpected leader in power.
That possibility hadn’t been factored into any of the original models, so they had to rerun them. The presentation we helped with was the one where they revealed the updated forecasts, and how they differed from their pre-election baseline (PEB) models.
Here is the original slide that the client used to reveal these updated forecasts.
There’s a lot going on in this slide. It’s trying to cover lots of information all at once. As a viewer, I’m not sure where to look first, or where to find the key takeaways. There are a lot of words on the slide, which can be helpful if I’m reading it on my own, but not ideal when it’s being presented live (which this one was).
On top of the words, there are acronyms and abbreviations describing the various models. All of the 15 different data series (yes, I counted them) are labeled with a mix of colors, data markers, and hard-to-decipher labels.
Many of these data series overlap one another in the graph itself, making it even harder to tell them apart. The legend doesn’t help much—it’s just one long list, without even a clear separation between “export” models and “import” models.
The good news is that all of this is fixable. And each of the following changes—on its own or combined—would make the visual stronger:
Use fewer words, and do so more intentionally
Simplify the legend
Show fewer data series at one time
Add clear takeaways
Use color to direct focus
We can make all of these changes (and did; you’ll see that below). But the single biggest improvement is making sure we tell a strong, coherent story.
This visual is trying to communicate something dense and nuanced, but important. If it’s explained clearly and thoughtfully, people will follow along. The best way to do this is the same way you start a journey of 1000 miles: one step at a time.
One of the most common traps in data visualization is trying to show everything at once. Especially when presenting live, it’s much more effective to reveal one idea at a time. Let each visual carry one part of the story. Then, build on that idea with the next slide or graph. Layer by layer, you’ll add meaning and clarity. And by the end, your audience will walk away informed, confident, and ready to take action.
When planning out a narrative, we often use a story mountain structure, composed of three elements.
We begin with the plot, where we describe the context and what’s at stake; we follow up next with the twists, which are the interesting things we found during our exploratory analysis; and then conclude with the ending, which is our recommendation for what to do (or discuss doing) next. You can explore this idea more fully in the article linked above, or in any of the books in the SWD library (including before & after).
For this communication, here’s how I’d apply the story mountain:
The plot – Country A’s trade value is going to change in the next 15 years. Because of the unexpected regime change, we think it’ll be worse than we previously expected (and we can set that expectation for our audience, who may not take that as a given).
The twists – Although the new models are overall more pessimistic than the prior ones, some do offer a bit more optimism, and these are predicated on certain developmental outcomes or efforts.
The ending – If we invest with an eye towards helping Country A achieve these specific outcomes, while also investing in opportunities that will benefit from these developments, we will realize the most impact from our investments.
For the remainder of this article, imagine that I’m delivering this presentation in person to a live audience. I’ll show the slides along with the narration I would use for each one.
“Folks, thanks for joining me today. Post regime change, we’ve had to revise our 15-year export and import projections for Country A. I’m going to say right off the bat that most of our models have revised their forecasts downward…but not all. There’s always uncertainty in forecasting, and there’s a range of possible outcomes that our models have generated, and we think there are still investment opportunities here.
“I’m now going to walk you through what we’ve found, and highlight why there is some reason for optimism.”
“Let’s start by looking at exports. For the latter half of the 2010s, exports were in decline.”
“They recovered slightly over the past four years, and last year sat at $52 billion US. “
“Our pre-election baseline model, or PEB model, forecast slow, continual decline, with an aggregation across multiple models showing $17 billion in annual exports by 2040. Of course, when regime change caused us to re-evaluate, we got a range of new forecasts.”
“This gray shaded region shows the range of our revised models, from most optimistic to most pessimistic. Leaving the PEB in as a reference, our new models are mostly lower than that base for the next 15 years. In 2040 the range of predictions is from $11 billion on the low end to $20 billion on the high end.
“That is, with one exception.
“We ran a model called 29P.”
“This model assumes 100% truck connectivity to the national IT infrastructure, electronic tolling, rolling high-speed weigh-ins, and so on. Now we don’t expect this to happen until…”
“...around 2035, but by 2036, that would already boost our expectations to above PEB projections. In fact, this one model expects such gains in exports, if we do achieve 100% connectivity, that…”
“...all on its own, it boosts the most optimistic models for 2040 by $7 billion, to a possible max of $27 billion in annual exports. No matter what else happens, this one development would make a substantial difference to Country A’s future export volume.”
“Now let’s switch our focus, and look at imports. We can see that even though…”
“...they were uneven through the last several years, sitting at $40 billion as of the end of ‘24, our PEB projections…”
“...expected imports to rise steadily, and reach nearly $100 billion by 2040.”
“Perhaps unsurprisingly, our revised models are uncertain, but mostly lower than the PEB, with a $32 billion range opening up by 2040.
“However, three distinct models offer us some optimism for how actual imports by 2040 could wind up as close to the top of that range as possible.”
“The first model is called A5CP. It tells us that with automated management of trucks once they’re in ports (RFID tags, using optical scanners, and so on), we could mostly exceed our pre-regime change baseline. You’ll notice a bit of diminishing return 15 years out, but this would keep imports on the higher end of projections near-and medium term.”
“Let’s look at another model. This one, SSVSIZE, is all about vessel and shipment sizes. While larger vessels and larger shipment sizes will take a few years to implement, we can see the positive effects compared to the PEB case by the middle of next decade, and the projections are for an increase to more than $100 billion in imports annually by 2040 if this comes to pass.”
“One last one to consider here: free trade agreements. Negotiated agreements have the potential to drive the trade value of Country A imports to the height of our projection range.
“With those four critical projections in mind, you can see that there are investment opportunities despite the recent unexpected regime change.”
“Let’s discuss what specific opportunities we can pursue that support the development of these infrastructure improvements, as well as others that will benefit from that development in a 10–15 year time horizon.”
The narrative tells a much clearer story now, don’t you think? By walking through a complex idea one step at a time, we give people the chance to build their understanding gradually. Instead of feeling overwhelmed, they’re more likely to feel informed and inspired.
If you ever find yourself in a situation where you can’t present these findings live, we recommend not sending the full slide deck around (and definitely don’t just send that first slide). Instead, use the same principles you used to build the full story, but apply them to a one-page executive summary. Help your audience see the plot (the context and what’s at stake), the twists (what your analysis uncovered), and the ending (what should happen now) in a condensed but clear format.
The slide below shows one way to approach this:
If you look carefully, you’ll see how you can get all the pieces of the story mountain in there.
Start with your key takeaway as the slide title.
Follow that with the context (your plot) in the short paragraph right below.
Condense your visuals from several animated steps into two clear, focused charts that highlight your most important findings (the twists). Use direct text annotations to explain what the visuals show, and tie everything together with color to guide the eye.
Finally, close with a bold takeaway (the ending) at the bottom: here’s what we should do next.
Visual makeovers like this one are a core part of the workshops we deliver to clients. It’s always fun to watch something go from standard to stellar—especially when it’s a graph or a slide you work with every day. Most of the changes don’t even take a ton of effort. We focus on giving people simple tools and practical tactics to improve how they communicate, without needing to be a technical expert or have a design degree.
If you enjoyed this makeover—which, let me remind you, didn’t make it into the book—just imagine how much you’ll enjoy the ones that did. storytelling with data: before & after comes out in the U.S. on September 23rd. You can pre-order it now from your favorite bookseller, or download three free sample chapters right away.
And if you or your team are curious how this kind of visual transformation could apply to your own work, let’s talk about setting up a custom workshop.
2025-07-21 21:30:30
Long before I joined storytelling with data as an employee, I was a fan. Back then, in 2016, I was an analyst, and I discovered a book that would change the way I thought about my work: storytelling with data: a data visualization guide for business professionals. (Or, as we have come to call it within the company: “the white book”.)
I loved how practical it was, especially Chapter 9, "Case Studies." There was something magical about seeing the strategies described throughout the book applied to real business examples. Comparing the before and after views brought home for me just how dramatically visuals could be improved through simple, common-sense modifications.
After reading the book, I started following the blog, specifically for the makeover articles. Despite each transformation being rooted in the same core principles, each scenario felt fresh. There was always a unique challenge to consider: comparing data series with extremely different magnitudes; dealing with a large number of categories; or navigating a less-than-ideal brand color palette.
This is what I love most about data visualization and storytelling. It’s never the same! Every dataset and audience presents a different set of constraints to solve.
Since joining the company in 2019, we’ve added three (soon to be four) new books to the SWD library. Let’s Practice! (“the blue book”) is a workbook featuring hundreds of exercises to hone specific skills like choosing the right graph type and decluttering charts. In 2023, “the yellow book”, storytelling with you, was published as a guide for public speaking so that anyone—data professional or not—could learn to deliver better presentations. And last year, we ventured into the children’s space with Daphne Draws Data, showing kids that math and data can be fun! This year, we are returning to adults with “the teal book”.
Reflecting on my journey creates a "pinch-me moment". It’s hard for me to grasp that I’ve gone from reader and fan, to employee, to author of the latest addition to the SWD library, storytelling with data: before & after. I wrote this book alongside my colleague and friend, Mike Cisneros, and, of course, our CEO and Founder, Cole Nussbaumer Knaflic. As a team, we’ve helped clients refine hundreds of real-world communications over the years. From those experiences, we’ve put together 20 case studies for before & after, sharing the process and lessons learned while we transformed their examples, all of which were carefully anonymized to protect confidentiality.
Because these case studies represent real client work we've done across various industries, the examples vary significantly. We show makeovers for ad hoc graphs, emails, dashboards, scorecards, reports, executive summaries, and even entire slide decks. There are qualitative datasets, maps, violin charts, survival curves, and, of course, the standard lines, bars, and pies.
Source: Knaflic, Cisneros, Velez. storytelling with data: before & after, Wiley, © 2025.
This is the book I wish I had when I was an analyst (before my time at storytelling with data). I can’t tell you how many times I searched online for inspiration or good examples of business graphs and slides that I could emulate. Most of the results were disappointing and could be grouped into two categories:
Overly colorful and dense visuals (a.k.a. bad examples), or
Diagrams and dashboards packed with circles. (Why are there always so many circles? Also, dashboards aren’t great tools for storytelling!)
I hope that storytelling with data: before & after will become a reliable reference and inspiration for others. But beyond that, I hope that with each makeover, readers will learn something new that they can apply well beyond the example.
From the folks who attend our workshops, to readers of our blog and earlier books, to viewers of our instructional videos, everyone unanimously agrees that they love the before-and-after visual transformations we create. We get it—we love to watch makeovers, too!
That’s why twenty of the twenty-two chapters are makeovers, each one illustrating a particular theme or constraint our clients faced.
For example, Mike worked with a client who struggled to find the right level of detail to share in their graphs. This client collected real-time data to monitor their call center, using graphs that resemble the following.
Source: Knaflic, Cisneros, Velez. storytelling with data: before & after, Wiley, © 2025.
Mike helped them understand that while high-frequency data is great when monitoring performance, it’s often too detailed to use in a presentation or report. For example, when providing an update on an outage in the call center, the data needed to be grouped into 10-minute intervals and broken down by day of the week (shown below). Throughout the chapter, he cycles through even more ways to aggregate the data depending on the message.
Source: Knaflic, Cisneros, Velez. storytelling with data: before & after, Wiley, © 2025.
By the way, if you want to explore this makeover in more detail, download our sample pack. It’s free!
While I think the examples themselves are powerful, I’m also quite proud of the way the book’s visual aesthetic came together.
As you scanned some of the spreads shown throughout this article, you may have taken notice of the bold but clean designs. We worked hand-in-hand with our design team at Flight to make this book both accessible and visually interesting.
The final spread of each makeover chapter features a before-and-after comparison, along with a summary of the steps and lessons that made the transformation possible. Our goal for you, the reader, was to make it easy to quickly reference strategies as you apply the learnings to your own projects.
Source: Knaflic, Cisneros, Velez. storytelling with data: before & after, Wiley, © 2025.
Throughout the book, we’ve added QR codes. These lead to video tutorials that demonstrate how to create specific charts, such as dot plots, or add animation to your charts in PowerPoint. For a handful of the presentation slide makeovers, we created video companions so you can not only read about how we redesigned the deck, but also watch the final presentation.
Source: Knaflic, Cisneros, Velez. storytelling with data: before & after, Wiley, © 2025.
I can only hope you’re just as excited about before & after as we are. The book will be available this September (available for preorder now). In the meantime, we’ve got you covered with some sneak preview content:
Watch Cole’s live presentation of her makeover in Chapter 20, where she transforms a colorful dashboard into a detailed presentation that drives action.
Download a free sample of the book featuring three chapters: the introduction, my first makeover in the book (Chapter 1), and Mike’s call center scenario shared above (Chapter 17).
Here’s to your next data makeover, whether it's a work-related visual, something prompted by our community site, or just a personal project. I hope you enjoy the process—there’s also something new to learn!
Do you want to learn to create and communicate a powerful data story? Join our upcoming 8-week online course: plan, create, and deliver your data story. Data storytellers Amy and Simon will guide you through the world of storytelling with data, teaching a repeatable process to plan in helpful ways (articulating a clear message and distilling critical content to support it), create effective materials (graphs, slides, and presentations), and communicate it all in a way that gets your audience’s attention, builds your credibility, and drives action. Learn more and register today.
2025-07-03 21:00:00
There’s something truly magical about being together in a room—learning, talking, and building skills in person. I was reminded of this recently while delivering a two-day workshop in Trinidad—a unique opportunity to visit a country I hadn’t been to before, which stood out personally, for the wonderful experience, and professionally, for how smoothly everything came together.
This workshop had attendees from the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and more than ten separate entities of invited government stakeholders. As I flew back to London, I reflected on the numerous unique and considerate touches the organizers put in place that contributed to its success and helped make this workshop an occasion that will live long in the memory.
Pre-workshop engagement and set up
Any successful gathering of people requires a lot of motivation and preparation ahead of time—effort that often goes unrecognized. I had high hopes for this workshop, because the communication leading up to the day was outstanding. I had regular email exchanges and a Zoom meeting with the IDB team to align on goals, expectations, and logistics—not just around the content, but the practicalities of traveling to another country with hotel recommendations, local areas to explore, tips on currency, food and transport all provided. The attendee list was shared and discussed ahead of time. That early investment paid off. I felt at ease, well-informed, and excited to deliver.
No matter how well prepared one might be, there’s nothing to reduce those pre-workshop butterflies like walking into a venue and seeing everything laid out and ready to go. Every seat was set with a handout, pens, sticky notes, and a copy of storytelling with you.
That sense of calm before the session starts makes a huge difference—and the positive atmosphere continued as attendees arrived and began socializing over a catered breakfast.
During the workshop
The workshop began with an IDB-led introduction, emphasizing the shared objectives for participants and included an amusing roll call of representatives present in the room. It reinforced the shared purpose and created an inclusive tone from the outset. As a result, interaction was high—not just during the dedicated Q&A sections, but throughout. I love it when workshops take on that conversational tone. It helps everyone relax, encourages deeper learning, and often surfaces insights and discussion topics that enhance the overall session.
One activity that best demonstrated the enhanced interaction of the workshop was the storyboarding exercise. Participants typically work independently, brainstorming ideas on a project of their choosing. But with this group, several tables opted to work collaboratively on a sole tablemate’s chosen topic. It sparked lively discussion and turned the exercise into one of the most effective I’ve seen.
On day one, we spent time looking at the power of leveraging aspects of story, a critical aspect to delivering a compelling communication. During this lesson, we give one lucky participant a chance to take away our latest book, Daphne Draws Data. To ensure fairness, rather than simply handing the book to the highest hand raiser, the IDB team chose to begin day two with a quiz. This quiz, composed by the IDB team, focused on lessons from day one and served as a great introduction and recap to day two, as well as a casual, fun way to begin the day.
And, my personal highlight of the workshop. Following a conversation about local cuisine on the second day, the team surprised me during a break with a traditional Trinidadian dish—Doubles, a common street food treat consisting of curried chickpeas served on two fried flatbreads. Cue laughter, a few photos, and a memory I’ll treasure.
The workshop concluded with a presentation of certificates by Julian Belgrave, IDB Country Representative in Trinidad and Tobago—turning the close into a moment of celebration. And, despite the 85°F heat (that’s hot for an Englishman!), we all ventured outdoors for a group photo, giving a graduation-style feel to proceedings.
While great content and quality delivery form the foundation of a stellar workshop, the magic often comes from the people, especially the care and attention given by those behind the scenes. This session was a standout example of that, and I want to say a huge thank you to Isaiah, Paula, Daniela and the rest of the team for helping to deliver and contributing to an unforgettable experience for all.
Here’s to more fantastic workshops—together, in person, and full of connection.
2025-06-26 04:46:56
Recently, I had the privilege of speaking alongside my fellow data storyteller and author Alex Velez at the Outlier Conference, an annual event organized by the Data Visualization Society. This article is adapted from the talk we delivered there.
Everyone who works with data has encountered difficult audiences from time to time. You know who we mean: people who challenge the data at every turn, for instance; or folks who are resistant to ideas that conflict with their own assumptions.
This can be both frustrating and disheartening, especially when we devote so much time (and our professional careers) to diligently and conscientiously analyzing and sharing insights we find in that data.
If you’ve felt this way, we empathize. We’d like to share two different approaches that we’ve found to be useful for breaking through this frustration and disappointment.
…because if we can’t reach people, the rest doesn’t matter. These techniques are useful for connecting with our audiences and convincing them to value what we have to offer.
In moments when trust is low and skepticism is high, data alone isn’t going to carry the day. It’s critical to step back and put yourself in your audience’s shoes. Instead of starting from your perspective, or the “data’s perspective,” lead with empathy. Demonstrate that you’ve thought about the people you’re presenting to, and the people you’re presenting about. If your data affects people, which it often does, then people belong at the center of how you frame it.
That doesn’t mean putting emotions ahead of facts—it means recognizing that emotions are part of the equation. Emotional intelligence matters, even when the data and the facts support your position. A little humanity goes a long way in helping people feel seen—and when someone feels seen, they’re more likely to listen.
As a presenter, making that connection with your audience is critical. Remember, though, that there may also be other trust gaps to address. Frequently, data conversations start from a place of disagreement: factions of people in the same room butting heads over competing beliefs and interpretations.
If we anticipate disharmony among our audience members, whether in their interests, beliefs, goals, or motivations, we can look for common ground. Scan the room and ask yourself, why are we all here? What do we all care about, even if we have different ways of showing it? More often than not, we can agree on basic values or goals—things like fairness, opportunity, and stability. If we root our stories in those shared values, we reduce defensiveness and create space for dialogue.
In some cases, we find ourselves presenting to folks who are skeptical of data as a rule, whether it’s rooted in a belief in the old “lies, damn lies, and statistics” cliché, or just the natural wariness that comes from having been burned by misleading or inaccurate analyses. An effective approach here is to combine the qualitative with the quantitative in your presentation—blend stats and story.
It should not be a surprise that a data storyteller at storytelling with data suggests this approach. But it’s true! We don’t have to choose between quantitative data and a compelling narrative. We need both. A story brings structure and meaning to our message, and reminds people that numbers aren’t the point—people are. (Or, in the example we used at the conference, people and dogs are…Alex shared a case study from our upcoming book about how dog owners make decisions about the kibble they buy.)
Story reminds us what matters, and data adds credibility. When we combine them, we make our communication engaging and memorable.
Still, even with the best intentions, we’re not always going to have perfect clarity. Sometimes the data is incomplete. Sometimes it contradicts itself. Trying to pretend otherwise does more harm than good. There’s power in admitting uncertainty. It shows maturity and builds trust. Yes, it’s important to be precise, but it’s more important to be transparent. Credibility is predicated on a long and unassailable track record of honesty, and that includes admitting the boundaries of our expertise.
Incidentally, during a panel discussion at the conference, three people were asked, “In the age of increasing use of AI, and more and more difficulty in assessing the provenance of the work we see, what makes you likely to trust a visualization?” Two of the three people answered, “If I know the person who created it,” and the third answered, “If they are transparent about their process and the source of their data.” Credibility, honesty, and transparency will be key factors in your future efforts to persuade audiences with data.
Four ways to bridge the trust gap: lead with empathy; find common ground among your audience’s factions; blend stories and stats for enhanced openness and engagement; and admit the limits of your expertise.
But let’s be honest with ourselves. Even when we connect. Even when we do everything “right,” it can still feel like we’re shouting into the wind. We’ve all had runs of weeks, months, or even years with intermittent positive feedback at best, and even rarer obvious wins. So how do you stay motivated?
For us, it starts with redefining what success looks like. Not every win is going to be big or obvious. Sometimes it’s a single moment of clarity—someone finally understanding a complex issue because of how you explained it. Sometimes it’s planting a seed that doesn’t sprout for weeks or months. That still counts. That’s still you making an impact.
It also helps to give yourself permission to celebrate slow progress. Be consistent, durable, and conscientious in your efforts. Sometimes the most valuable thing we can do is pause, take stock, and do one thing well. Repairing trust, building understanding—these things take time. And that’s okay. Slow progress is still better than no progress, and is far better than just giving up.
Remember, too, that not all impact is visible. Any room always has a few loud people in it, and it’s not uncommon that we overindex on responding to their opinions and reactions. Instead of focusing on them, speak to the quiet ones in the room. There’s always someone paying attention. Maybe they’re not the loudest voices, but they hear you just as clearly (if not more so) than the talkers. They see how you carry yourself, how you respond to questions, how you stand firm when you’re challenged. The behavior you model has an impact on people who may never tell you about it. But even in silence, they may be taking it all to heart and carrying it forward. That matters.
Through it all, though, the thing that can sustain you the most is finding and protecting what brings you joy in your work. For me, it’s speaking to a group of people, and seeing that spark in them when a messy idea finally clicks, or how they get excited when they realize during one of our workshops some specific way they can immediately and dramatically improve their day-to-day work products. For you, it might be something else: solving a challenging visual puzzle; mentoring a newer professional; hearing unexpected positive feedback; or getting buy-in on a meaningful initiative. Identifying, remembering, and cherishing those moments can sustain us through the moments when it feels like no one is listening to what we’re saying.
Techniques for staying motivated include: redefining success to include smaller victories; celebrating progress on a different time scale; focusing on the impact one has on the quieter people, rather than the loud ones; and identifying and protecting the aspects of your work that have always given you joy.
Our role is to show up with clarity, empathy, and transparency—to help people make better decisions from data and drive positive change. Our daily actions need to reflect our commitment to this idea. Sometimes progress feels slow or invisible, but that is the nature of progress—it is neither predictable nor linear. Whether impact happens in the moment or months later, building trust is a long game. The way we communicate today shapes how others engage with data tomorrow—and that’s what makes the work worth doing.
2025-06-10 23:27:21
One common feature of the iterative process is that things often get messier before they get better. There’s a word for that illusion that everything always improves in a linear way: monotonic. But real progress often has a lot more ups and downs than a straight line.
Let me show you what I mean.
We’ll start with a table (borrowed from the virtual mini-workshop I’m planning for 6/26). It shows evaluation results across four suppliers. It’s rich with data: we can see how each supplier performed across the five dimensions (initial setup, overall operation, functionality, ease of use, patient satisfaction) and on average. But as a visual, it doesn’t help us quickly grasp the key takeaway.
So let’s graph it. This is categorical data, so I’ll opt for a bar chart. The test metrics are a little wordy, so I’ll use the horizontal variety, where the text also is oriented horizontally, making those descriptors easy to read. Below is my initial graph. It’s a direct translation of the table into visual form.
It’s an honest first try—but dense, colorful, and hard to compare. Let’s continue to iterate.
Next, I’ll regroup the data by supplier.
At this point, I am reminded of Bob Ross. Perhaps you know the moment I’m thinking of from The Joy of Painting: he’s calmly painting a serene landscape, it’s starting to look good, and then—seemingly out of nowhere—he swipes a bold, dark line down the canvas. Gasp! Why did he ruin it?!
But he hasn’t.
With a bit of time, that unexpected line becomes the happy little tree in the foreground that brings the whole painting to life.
This bar graph is my dark streak. It doesn’t look better yet—there’s too much color, too many bars. It’s challenging to compare much of anything. It might even feel like a step backwards.
But that’s part of the process. Because with a few thoughtful tweaks, clarity can emerge.
I’ll eliminate clutter, streamline colors, add words in thoughtfully placed places to make the graph—and what I want people to take away from it—perfectly clear.
Depending on the situation, I might be able to distill the detail even further and simply plot the averages, rather than the individual dimension detail.
In either case, the data has been transformed into something more.
This example is one of several that I’ll walk through during my upcoming free live virtual mini-workshop on June 26th. Join me to learn practical strategies for turning data into compelling visual stories and get your questions answered. Simply register to join.
In the meantime, if you’d like to consider how you might transform this or related visuals—or see how others are approaching it—check out the June SWD challenge.
This example is from our new book, which features twenty client-inspired makeovers designed to help you rethink how you communicate with data. Preorder it today!
