HOW TO BECOME A DATA VISUALIZATION ROCKSTAR

Ever wondered why we find it easier to confront challenging work compared to seating down to generate reports on the works we’ve done – it’s embarrassing to admit yet we are all guilty of this.

Painfully, few of us have ever questioned this sarcastic behavior. We obviously do not see the benign importance of investing time to polish our reporting skill (Data Visualization). This article was written to press the importance of honing your reporting skill.

Let me start by painting a contrary situation where you would agree with me, we all accept that having a word processing software doesn’t make us a great writer – so we take classes to learn the fundamentals, guidelines, and rules.

Only in following this process can we get better at writing. Yet, when it comes to report and dashboard designing, we unthoughtfully believe that a means to a computer is all that we need to create effective reports. This is because tables and graphs are the common means to communicate quantitative information many of us assume that its effective use is common as well. Hence, few of us have learned the design practices that make them effective.

Rather than learn how to communicate better with our report components, we direct all our effort towards learning a data visualization software like tableau, Klipfolio or Microsoft BI while we never bother to seek to learn the best use case for our report component.

This knowledge gap makes us lose enthusiasm for report creation. Let me ask you; What drives your choice of using a graph or table to build a report? I guess you just pick a component instinctively. Yelp, that’s what almost everyone does.

This knowledge gap makes us lose enthusiasm for report creation. Let me ask you; What drives your choice of using a graph or table to build a report? I guess you just pick a component instinctively. Yelp, that’s what almost everyone does.

Let me end this paragraph by adding that if you have ever been called by your boss to explain a report that you’ve designed – then you have something going wrong!

Report and dashboard designers need a reference board, they deserve a standard to adhere to and draw inspiration from. We cannot continue to tell a shabby story with our report component.

I’ve read a ton of books and articles to get better at using my report components, but I could not find an online course for this topic, So, I decided to create an online course for ease of consumption for concerned professionals. Am still building and shooting videos of the course – so, to join my list of those that will be contacted once we are done – for FREE! Leave a comment below preferably with your email.