Success Factors of Data Visualization

If you can only convert data into beautiful charts, or design 20 different types of charts to explain your point of view, it does not mean that you should use all of these 20 charts, or even one of them.

If you want to report results successfully, and effectively transform the metrics and data you analyze into insights with business value, so that it can provide support for decision-making based on facts, then there are a few guidelines:

1. Know your audience

Design also needs to put yourself in place, not just thinking about your own ideas, but thinking more from the perspective of the audience. First ask yourself who will see the report? Do they understand what is discussed in the report and what do they need? What do you want to know? And what is the role of your display information, and how they will use what you display.


2. Customized data visualization solution

Data visualization solutions are prepared according to the needs of users. The purpose is to solve certain problems of users. Therefore, you need to have a deep understanding of the phenomena and inherent nature of those massive data. Therefore, a successful visualization plan must not only explain the data and analysis conclusions well, but also enable managers to find the problem based on the visualization path and analyze and make decisions in time to achieve the ultimate goal.


3. Choose your display chart wisely

No matter which kind of chart is, it has its own advantages and limitations. If you can't find a perfect visualization chart, you can make the visualization more humane by trying a mixed display method. All visual effects should be as simple and accurate as possible to convey information. Trending, good-looking and gorgeous are not the original intention of designing data visualization. Although we have been pursuing the beauty of data, we should use appropriate data visualization to interpret the right information and knowledge.


4. Data visualization should be linked to strategy

If the purpose of data visualization is to introduce data that can solve specific, measurable, executable, relevant and time-sensitive issues, add these issues to the opening remarks. Connect with your strategy later to clarify the positioning of these data, so readers can immediately understand the relevance and value of visualized data. In the end, they will be better able to participate and be able to use this information more wisely.


5. Give a clear title to data visualization

The title is a high-level summary and summary of the entire report. A good title can give readers a visual impact without a title. A prominent headline can help the audience directly enter the topic, and the key core can be grasped by a general browsing, so neither ambiguity nor superfluous, just explain the chart clearly.


6. Add text descriptions where appropriate

The text description helps explain the data in words, and can increase the depth of the content while contextualizing the chart. Figures and tables can provide quick reference at a glance, but text descriptions can better explain the connotations of key points. In this way, the viewer is guided to think about the subject of the chart, not just the appearance of the chart itself.