Nicole Cooper
July 19, 2016
Puffingston CEO and Prezi expert Luke Goetting recently ran a webinar with us, reconstructing boring visual data into a content-infused prezi. Data visualization is designed to guide your audience throughout your presentation and lure them into details. In this post, we’ll recap some of Luke’s tips for using data viz to go from dull to rich content.
Digest comfortably.
Before: Understanding a visual data set can be very confusing and hard to digest if there are no distinct differences to look at. In the example above, it’s hard to see what’s being compared because the frame is way too busy.
After: Just by incorporating 2-3 different colors, each category becomes easy to identify. The data is broken up into different frames and Luke has used movement to show the relationship between different pieces of information. This helps the audience understand what is most important and makes it much easier to digest.
Take-out, anyone?
Before: This example showcases the importance of how numbers relate to one another in a big group of data. The “before” example doesn’t include any kind of visualization that explains how the separate parts fit into a whole. Without targeting the different takeaways you want to leave your audience members with, this approach can ultimately lose them.
After: The “after” example makes the breakdown of delegate selection clear as a whole unit, while also using Prezi’s zoom feature to drill into details for each section of the pie. The data wheels and single-numbered pie charts provide information within the larger context of the presentation and allow the audience to view statistics as they relate to one another.
Before: Let’s face it, everyone’s eyes gravitate towards the highest numbers in a data set. This example is all about data prioritization. Don’t expect your audience to know which numbers are most important in your charts. In the “before” example, the data isn’t differentiated in any way, so the piece that the presenter wants her audience to focus on isn’t clear.
After: In the “after” example, the three most important numbers are called out, while still showing all of the other data below, slightly smaller. With the breakdown of each category, discrete details, and brief background information, these layouts provide the most clarity.
Support one another.
Before: When you have a bunch of data and don’t know how to structure it, you can lose your audience very easily. Expressing data with concise visual elements will help your message remain focused and easy to remember. The “before” example is just four disparate slides-there’s no overarching message that comes through for the audience.
After: However, with strategic arrangement, all charts can be minimized into one frame for a concise message. In the “after” example, Luke has turned this data into a single story. With Prezi, he’s able to highlight distinct pieces of data by zooming in, but then he can zoom out to show the big picture and the key takeaway for the audience. This “after” example also makes use of Prezi’s zooming and panning to highlight each individual piece of data within the larger context of the whole. Rather than piling up your presentation with various slides of charts and clustered visualizations (as seen in the “before” example), data visualization should be clean and concise.
For more tips, check out Part 1 of this post here. Or, if you’d like to see Luke’s tips in action, go on over and watch the full recording.
