Story Telling With Tableau

“Most people don’t know what a story is until they sit down and write one“

–Flannery O Connor

Story telling is an ancient and powerful tool for communicating ideas. While telling a story we have to keep in mind the following

• How to leverage the power of story telling
• What makes a good story
• What are the potential pitfalls of story telling?
• Have I applied the 3 C’s of a basic story arc
  • Context
  • Challenge
  • Conclusion

Data tells what is happening and story tells why it is happening

STAY FLUID IN TABLEAU

1. Use variety of sources and options
2. Use story points to build and organize
3. Toggle to refine and optimize
4. Add or remove as the story requires

USE ONLY WHAT’S NEEDED FOR 3 C’s

Be focused and selective

• In presentation
• In how you extract and interpret data
• Draw correct conclusions

TWO IMPORTANT CONSIDERATIONS

• EXPRESSIVENESS: Do you have a data to express story accurately?
• EFFECTIVENESS: Does presentation style effectively convey data’s meaning?

DATA STORY TELLING TIPS

• Check your facts
• Focus on the key statistics to become focal pointed
• Convert data into visual form
• Present insights from the data
• Make facts relatable using representatives

PRO’s OF USING STORIES

• Story improves comprehension and recall
• Story evokes empathy and emotions
• Stories engage more  of the brain than just facts and figures

CONS OF USING STORIES

• Stories can distort data with meaningless patterns
• Creates false narratives
• Seeing patterns leads to false conclusions