6 Methods for Data Visualization
As a data journalist, a storyteller, or even a data analyst, teaching yourself Python, R, Tableau or Power BI could be challenging in the beginning. However, there are some open sources online which have already prepared the models, structures, and ideas for those who are new in this area to step in.
In this post, I will cover 6 helpful methods for presenting the data, in the order of how cool, how amazing I think they are:
1. Interactive Q & A
The “Weekly News Quiz for Students” column in The New York Times guides readers into an issue by picking the week’s most important and interesting news and using 10 interactive questions. For some relatively soft topics related to education, culture or environment, instead of just the questions, you can assume a situation (or make up a story) and insert several sets of Q & A to let readers think deeply.
The coherence of the story and the design of the questions are the most important components here, and Google PPT and Makeweb are two easy and good tools to help you achieve.
2. Information Map
There must be a chance you have to show lots of locations, then Google My Map or Google Earth can help. Take the above resource, which shows all the locations of free check-up clinics in Taiwan, for example, when you click on the coordinate, the corresponding information such as address, phone number, opening time, category, etc will pop out. Therefore, it’s useful for people to find out which one they can go.
Moreover, you can use My Map to schedule a trip. Mark the locations you want to go, then you can arrange the shortest route to every destination and share it with your friends.
3. Infographic
This is an infographic model made by Piktochart. It’s a good example to compare different candidates in different aspects. For other topics, you can choose the models and components which have a better match. Besides the infographics, it also provides the design for presentations and flyers.
4. Virtual Tour
Do you remember the accident happened in 2018 summer that the Thai junior football players and coach were trapped in the underground caves for 10 days and were all finally rescued and survived? In order to make the public understand and experience more of this, a director asked a VR expert, Al Caudullo, to restore the rescue process, making it into a virtual reality video. This uses the concept of the virtual tour.
Without professional equipment, you can use Vtility instead, taking the audience to the museum or having a cool adventure. After deciding the topic, what you have to do is upload photos, add introductions, and put the arrows (indicates the destination you want to take the viewers to) in the right position, then it’s ready to go.
5. News Game
Same ideas as the interactive Q & A, but in the news game, you should focus more on storytelling and how to make your game fun and match the topic. Here’s a good example: The Adventure in the South China Sea by Ifeng (it’s in Chinese, so if there are any other cool examples, please let me know). Likewise, you can also use Google PPT and Makeweb to create one.
6. Animated Narrative
As you all know, PowerPoint provides you to do a video (animation) presentation, and so does Powtoon. You can either use the built-in icons or design your own figures.
The functions Powtoon provides (timeline, music, and user-created voice-overs) make it really easy to be picked up, but still, the context of the video and the fluency of the story are the keys.
These not only apply to the beginners, but some professionals also stick with them rather than using other tools, as far as I know. Or let’s say, they’re somehow handier, more straight-forward and more user-friendly to present. I haven’t tried them all, but after writing this, I’m going to explore more.
About me
Hey, I’m Kelly, a business analytics graduate student with journalism and communication background who likes to share the life of exploring data and interesting findings. If you have any questions, feel free to contact me at kelly.szutu@gmail.com
