Storyboard your results

1. Storyboard your results

Let's imagine that you have appropriate visuals generated for your data story based on your insights. A good practice is to storyboard these results. This means selecting an order so that the charts mutually support each other, represent the narrative, and have an emotional impact.

2. Why do a storyboard?

If you are already writing a narrative, why would you also take the time to arrange the visuals you have connected to that narrative? Think about the purpose of data storytelling. It is to present data, a narrative, and visuals in a blended way that imparts a message and evokes emotion. A narrative and storyboard serve the same purpose: to help you tell a meaningful and memorable story of your data to an audience that inspires positive change. The narrative and storyboard concepts are very closely related. A narrative and storyboard can positively influence the development of the other. Constructing a storyboard before your spoken or written narrative helps to blend visuals with words better and ensures that you effectively communicate your message to your stakeholders even if they don’t listen or read every accompanying word.

3. Ask me how do I feel

Think of a storyboard as a graphic organizer that plans your narrative. Imagine that you have to arrange your visuals. To understand how you could do so, you can ask yourself some key questions as you view each one. How did you feel after completing this data visualization? Are you now feeling more informed about your data and environment? Did this data visualization make you better informed? What will your audience think and feel?

4. Storyboard construction

Once you have asked these questions, you can better select the storyboard order. As you start your storyboard organization, you know it will have a beginning, a middle, and an end. Conduct a simple sorting based on this concept. What do you want to reveal in each part and why? Other possible bins could be by problem, action or analysis, and outcome. Remember that your data story will revolve around a conflict and describe some aspect of your organization. It has a main message and is centered on just one challenge. The story as a whole must resonate with your audience to be effective. You can also experiment with the order during this time, develop different storylines, and explore different ideas. Just as long as the final result tells a compelling story with a clear message that will resonate with your readers.

5. Cue the theme music

As you look over your visuals in their initial planned order, choose a theme for your storyboard. Then, as necessary, build out a list of key statistics or data points from your data analysis to support your theme. Or even conduct more data analysis as required. This doesn't mean your initial analysis was faulty. Good analysis is fundamentally iterative. We discover new facts leading us to learn and ask better questions, leading us back to discover more facts. Example themes might include: Sales must improve soon. Better hiring and retention practices are needed. Our rebranding efforts have succeeded beyond our expectations. As you think about a common theme, a good idea is to practice explaining aloud the thematic significance of each visual to your audience. This might feel a little silly at first. However, by talking through your storyboard, you will find that you are also building a better understanding of the data story.

6. Let's practice!

Now that you understand the importance of storyboarding put its principles into practice with these exercises.

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