Data Visualization – Book Recommendation
Hi there everyone,
Quick post here, just wanted to share a good book I read on data visualization. As many of you know, visualizing data is what separates the entry level to the more experienced analyst. Most people are visual learners, being able to clearly visualize data is an art. Once you master what graph helps to explain the analysis, you should spend some time working with a designer to get a feel for color choice, font choice, and overall placement & layout. You would be surprised how less critical people are of your analysis if the visual itself looks amazing. Not only will a clean visual help your audience to better absorb the message you are trying to convey, but having a nice to-look-at visual will draw people to actually look at your report. No sense in spending days working on a nice analysis for it to simply get 2 views.
Now for the book, I finished this book a few weeks ago and I must say I was thrilled.

Storytelling with Data: A Data Visualization Guide for Business Professionals
By: Cole Nussbaumer Knaflic

Does an absolute wonderful job of explaining how to improve visuals while also providing multiple examples to learn from. I was a bit skeptical as I tend to work more with Tableau for visualization and a lot of these books focus on tweaking each aspect of the graph and this is simply not possible with some tools. However, this book did a great job of pointing out simple tweaks that you can do to greatly enhance your visual. From color choice, to placement, and even how to organize the titles. This is a must read for anyone who works with data!
My favorite knowledge gained from this book was the use of grey coloring. To be honest, this was something I did not focus on so much in my career. Most of my projects were “We need you to analyze this data, give us 100% accurate forecast of what to do…oh and we need it done yesterday.” So I never had the luxury of working with design. I highly recommend learning about the application of grey coloring to “dull” out filler data and how they will improve you visual. For me, using grey coloring on a line graph, then turning the focus part of the line to color really helps the user draw their attention to what is important in the line.
I will cover this topic in a later post, but learning how to properly story tell with data is an absolute must be able to engage your audience.

Happy analyzing,
Christopher Doidge
Owner – UI Consulting
www.uiconsulting.com