Communicate effectively with data visualization from Udemy

Learn how to how to convey data-driven insights by creating convincing charts that are easy to understand.

Data Visualizations: The Ultimate Communication Tool

Data visualizations are an incredibly powerful way to communicate. They allow you to convey a message quickly, convincingly, and attractively. This makes them particularly well-suited for maximising your impact on any audience.

The Challenge of Effective Visualizations

Creating impactful data visualizations is no easy feat. It’s a puzzle you can’t solve instantly. There are many considerations to take into account, such as:

How much data should you display?
What type of chart should you use?
What colors should you choose?
How can you present your data intuitively?
How do you direct your audience’s attention?
How do you write clear and compelling titles?
And how can you avoid unintentionally deceiving your readers?

These are important questions because visualizing data is a delicate process. Without proper care, even small missteps can confuse or mislead your audience — an issue that’s all too common.

This course is designed to answers these questions. It teaches you where to pay attention to, provides examples of best practices and highlights pitfalls to avoid.

Tools to Empower Your Decision-Making

Many people believe that creating great data visualizations is reserved for creatives with a strong visual sense.

But that’s simply not true.

With the right tools, anyone can produce clear and effective charts that get straight to the point. This training equips you with a powerful toolkit, including 15 guidelines. These guidelines help you make informed choices and ensure your visualizations tell a story that is intuitive and easy to understand. Best of all, they’re universally applicable - no matter your dataset, message, or audience - they will always have your back.

The toolkit is complemented by a test. This test makes it simple to verify whether your visualization is quickly understandable to a broad audience.

A Compact Training Packed with Examples

Your time is valuable, which is why this course is designed to deliver maximum impact in minimal time.The concepts are explained clearly and illustrated with numerous examples and visual aids to help you grasp them quickly and effectively. What else to expect from a course that teaches visual communication? ;-)

Practical and Insightful

This hands-on course emphasises practical application, equipping you with actionable skills. Everything you’ll learn is geared towards creating effective visualizations. That said, we don’t shy away from theory. After all, understanding the rationale behind your design choices is key. So, that’s what is explained repeatedly, making the training highly insightful without becoming unnecessarily theoretical.

For Anyone Who Visualizes Data

This course is for anyone who uses data to convey a message and wants to elevate their visual storytelling skills. Whether you’re a beginner or have some experience, you’ll benefit from this course. There’s no need for expertise in specific tools or software, as the focus is on universal principles, not technical execution. All the charts and graphs I included in the course were created using Excel or PowerPoint.

Data Visualizations in the Age of Artificial Intelligence

But what about AI? Is creating data visualizations still a skill worth learning?

Absolutely — now perhaps more than ever.

While AI can generate visually appealing charts, it doesn’t guarantee they’ll be effective. To guide AI tools toward creating meaningful and impactful visualizations, you need a solid understanding of the underlying design principles. These fundamentals are at the heart of this training, empowering you to take full advantage of AI while maintaining control over the outcome.

Empower Yourself and Your Audience

By completing this course, you’ll gain the skills to impress your audience with captivating and highly effective data visualisations. Don’t underestimate the power of a well-designed chart - it can change people minds and help to make smarter decisions. So do yourself — and your audience — a favour and master this skill.

Special thanks

A special thanks goes to my colleague Marten van Garderen. Our many inspiring conversations over the years have greatly enriched my perspective on communicating through data visualizations.

What's inside

Syllabus

Know what to expect from the course and why you should take it

Course overview

The shortcoming of most charts

Understand what makes data visualisations effective and what is required to create them.

Traffic lights

Read about what's good

what should give you pause

and possible dealbreakers

Focuses on universal principles applicable across various datasets, messages, and audiences, making it beneficial for both beginners and those with some experience

Provides a toolkit of 15 guidelines to help learners make informed choices and ensure visualizations tell an intuitive and easily understandable story

Emphasizes practical application, equipping learners with actionable skills geared towards creating effective visualizations in a compact training format

Includes examples using Excel and PowerPoint, which are commonly used tools, making the concepts accessible and immediately applicable for a broad audience

Includes a section on 'How to lie with charts,' which is important for data professionals to understand potential misrepresentations and maintain ethical standards

Highlights the importance of understanding design principles to guide AI tools in creating meaningful visualizations, empowering learners to leverage AI effectively

Reviews summary

Practical guidelines for data visualization

According to learners, this course provides highly practical and actionable guidelines for creating effective data visualizations. Students praise the clear explanations and the focus on universal principles, making it accessible regardless of the tools used (even touching on AI's role). Many found the 15 guidelines and the chart testing method to be immediately applicable. Reviews indicate the course is well-structured and easy to follow, particularly beneficial for those looking to improve communication skills with data.

Teaches how to convey a clear message.

"The main takeaway is how to ensure your chart conveys a single, clear message."

"It really hammered home the importance of focusing on the message."

"Helped me think about data visualization as a communication tool first."

"I learned how to make my charts much more persuasive and easy to understand."

Emphasizes universal, tool-agnostic principles.

"The course focuses on principles which makes it extremely helpful regardless of the tool you are using."

"These principles are universal and can be applied to any data visualization tool."

"It focuses on the 'why' behind effective visualization, which is crucial."

"I appreciate that it wasn't tied to specific software."

Provides immediately applicable techniques.

"I was able to apply the learnings directly in my work the next day."

"The tips and guidelines are immediately applicable."

"Everything is geared towards practical application."

"This course gave me concrete ways to improve my charts right away."

Content is explained clearly and is easy to grasp.

"The explanation is extremely clear and concise."

"All the content is clear and easy to understand."

"Concepts are explained clearly and well-illustrated."

"The course is structured well and easy to follow."

Offers actionable steps and a valuable toolkit.

"The 15 guidelines are really actionable and provide a good method to develop effective charts."

"Provides extremely actionable information and a clear structure to creating effective data visualizations."

"I found the tips and guidelines incredibly helpful for improving my data communication."

"The toolkit provided is super helpful for evaluating visualizations."

Activities

Be better prepared before your course. Deepen your understanding during and after it. Supplement your coursework and achieve mastery of the topics covered in Communicate effectively with data visualization with these activities:

Review Basic Chart Types

Show steps

Refresh your understanding of fundamental chart types to better grasp the course's guidelines on effective visualization choices.

Browse courses on Bar Charts

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Identify the strengths and weaknesses of each chart type.
Review examples of when to use each chart type effectively.
Practice creating basic charts using a tool like Excel or Google Sheets.

Review 'Storytelling with Data'

Show steps

Study a book on data storytelling to gain a deeper understanding of how to craft compelling narratives with your visualizations.

View Storytelling with You: Plan, Create, and... on Amazon

Show steps

Read the book and take notes on key concepts.
Identify examples of good and bad data visualizations from the book.
Apply the principles from the book to your own data visualization projects.

Critique Existing Visualizations

Show steps

Analyze existing data visualizations to identify strengths and weaknesses based on the course's guidelines.

Show steps

Find examples of data visualizations in news articles or reports.
Evaluate the visualizations based on the 15 guidelines taught in the course.
Write a short critique explaining what works and what could be improved.

Four other activities

Expand to see all activities and additional details

Show all seven activities

Review 'The Visual Display of Quantitative Information'

Show steps

Study a classic text on data visualization to understand the theoretical underpinnings of effective visual communication.

View Beautiful Evidence on Amazon

Show steps

Read the book and take notes on key principles.
Analyze examples of good and bad visualizations from the book.
Apply the principles from the book to your own data visualization work.

Data Visualization Redesign Project

Show steps

Undertake a project to redesign a poorly designed data visualization, applying the principles learned in the course.

Show steps

Find a poorly designed data visualization.
Identify the flaws in the original visualization.
Redesign the visualization using the course's guidelines.
Document the changes you made and why.

Create an Interactive Dashboard

Show steps

Build an interactive dashboard using a tool like Tableau or Power BI to showcase your data visualization skills.

Show steps

Choose a dataset that interests you.
Design the layout and functionality of the dashboard.
Create interactive charts and graphs to explore the data.
Add filters and other controls to allow users to customize the view.

Tutor other students

Show steps

Help other students with data visualization concepts to reinforce your own understanding.

Show steps

Offer to help classmates who are struggling with the material.
Explain concepts in your own words.
Answer questions and provide feedback on their visualizations.

Career center

Learners who complete Communicate effectively with data visualization will develop knowledge and skills that may be useful to these careers:

Data Journalist

A data journalist transforms raw data into compelling narratives. Data journalists often use data visualizations to support their stories, making complex information accessible to a broad audience. This course equips you with the tools to create clear and effective charts, ensuring your visualizations enhance your storytelling. You'll learn how to choose the right chart type, avoid visual distortions, and highlight key messages, which are all essential skills for any data journalist. The course's emphasis on conveying a single message and producing easy-to-derive titles directly supports the core responsibilities of a data journalist, who must present information in an engaging and understandable way.

See salaries and explore the career path for Data Journalist

Business Intelligence Analyst

A business intelligence analyst examines data to identify trends and insights that improve business decisions. As a business intelligence analyst, creating effective data visualizations is crucial for communicating your findings to stakeholders. This course offers numerous guidelines for making informed choices about data presentation, ensuring that charts are intuitive and easy to understand. Given that business intelligence analysts must often present complex analyses to non-technical audiences, the course's test for quickly understandable visualizations is invaluable. With this course, a business intelligence analyst will more easily empower data-driven decision making.

See salaries and explore the career path for Business Intelligence Analyst

Data Scientist

Data scientists analyze large datasets to identify trends, develop insights, and build predictive models. Data scientists commonly use data visualizations to explore data, communicate findings, and explain model results. This course helps hone skills in creating compelling and easily understandable charts. It emphasizes universal design principles applicable to any dataset, message, or audience, supporting the data scientist's need to effectively communicate insights to both technical and non-technical stakeholders. With the rise of artificial intelligence, data scientists still need these fundamental skills.

See salaries and explore the career path for Data Scientist

Market Research Analyst

Market research analysts study market conditions to examine potential sales of a product or service. The work of a market research analyst involves interpreting data and presenting it in a way that is easy for clients or internal stakeholders to understand. This course equips you with the ability to convey data-driven insights by creating clear and convincing charts. This course is designed to provide the skills to impress an audience, which is a key factor for a thriving market research analyst. You'll learn how to avoid common pitfalls and apply best practices to ensure your market research translates into actionable strategies.

See salaries and explore the career path for Market Research Analyst

Management Consultant

A management consultant advises organizations on how to improve performance and efficiency. Management consultants often use data visualizations to present their findings and recommendations to clients. This course provides practical tools and guidelines for creating impactful data visualizations, helping you convey complex information clearly and concisely. The course's emphasis on understanding the rationale behind design choices is particularly relevant for management consultants, who need to justify their recommendations with logical and data-driven arguments. A management consultant can therefore leverage this course to improve their analyses and insight.

See salaries and explore the career path for Management Consultant

Financial Analyst

A financial analyst provides guidance to businesses and individuals making investment decisions. Financial analysts rely heavily on data to analyze trends and forecast future performance, often presenting their findings through data visualizations. This course helps create charts that convey a single message that is easy to derive. The course's focus on avoiding visual distortions ensures that financial data is presented accurately and ethically. The work of a financial analyst will therefore benefit remarkably from this course.

See salaries and explore the career path for Financial Analyst

UX Researcher

A user experience researcher conducts studies of user behavior, attitude, and emotion, to gather feedback about products and services. This knowledge informs design decisions and ensures user centered design. The insights gathered by a user experience researcher can be visually presented using the skills learned in this course. Creating insightful visualizations improves the communication of complex information for a user experience researcher. Given that user experience research data can be broad, the course's lesson about restricting the amount of contained data would come in handy for any UX researcher.

See salaries and explore the career path for UX Researcher

Statistician

Statisticians collect, analyze, and interpret numerical data to identify significant trends and relationships. Statisticians frequently use data visualizations to communicate complex statistical findings to a wider audience. This course helps master the creation of effective visualizations that present data in a way that is intuitive and easy to understand which is the goal of any statistician. This course emphasizes practical application and actionable skills, equipping statisticians with the ability to convey their insights with greater clarity and impact.

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Social Media Manager

Social media managers are responsible for planning, implementing, and monitoring a company's social media strategy. Social media managers use data visualizations to track engagement metrics, analyze campaign performance, and present insights to stakeholders. This course helps elevate visual storytelling skills. The course's emphasis on creating visually appealing and easily understandable charts is crucial for capturing attention and driving engagement on social media.

See salaries and explore the career path for Social Media Manager

Science Communicator

Science communicators bridge the gap between scientists and the public, making complex scientific concepts accessible to a broad audience. Science communicators can leverage data visualizations to simplify research findings and engage the public. This course guides the creation of data visualization that is easy to understand. With these skills, a science communicator can reach a broader audience effectively.

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Public Relations Specialist

Public relations specialists manage an organization's reputation and communication with the public. Public relations specialists use data visualizations to present information to both internal and external audiences. This course may aid a public relations specialist in elevating their visual storytelling skills. The course's guidance on crafting clear and compelling titles ensures key messages resonate with the intended audience, which is essential for effective public relations.

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Technical Writer

Technical writers create documentation. The work of a technical writer includes producing user manuals, how-to guides, design specifications, and other documents required to convey technical information. Technical writers can use data visualizations to enhance the clarity and effectiveness of their work. This course may assist a technical writer on how to present text in charts that is easy to read. The course's discussions on clarity and conciseness directly support the core responsibilities of a technical writer.

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Urban Planner

Urban planners develop plans and programs for the use of land, helping communities grow sustainably. Urban planners use data visualizations to present demographic data, transportation patterns, and proposed developments to the public and policymakers. This course may improve the visual communication skills of an urban planner. The course's focus on clarity and avoiding confusion is particularly important in urban planning, where effective communication can shape public opinion and influence policy decisions.

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Political Campaign Manager

A political campaign manager coordinates and oversees all aspects of a political campaign. Political campaign managers may use data visualizations to track poll results, analyze voter demographics, and present information to donors and volunteers. This course assists those who wish to impress an audience with data visualization. The course's emphasis on conveying a single message and avoiding misleading visuals is crucial for maintaining credibility and trust in a political context.

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Grant Writer

Grant writers research and prepare proposals to secure funding for various projects and organizations. Grant writers might include data visualizations in their proposals to strengthen their arguments and demonstrate the impact of their work. This course may enhance data visualization skills in order to more easily convey data driven insights. The course's guidance on conveying a single message and highlighting key information is particularly relevant for grant writers, who need to persuade funders of the value of their projects.

See salaries and explore the career path for Grant Writer

Reading list

We've selected two books that we think will supplement your learning. Use these to develop background knowledge, enrich your coursework, and gain a deeper understanding of the topics covered in Communicate effectively with data visualization.

Storytelling with You

Save

Provides a practical guide to data visualization, focusing on how to communicate effectively with data. It emphasizes the importance of storytelling and clear communication in data presentation. It is commonly used as a reference by business professionals and students alike. This book adds depth to the course by providing real-world examples and actionable strategies for creating impactful visualizations.

Storytelling with You: Plan, Create, and Deliver a...

Paperback

Storytelling with You: Plan, Create, and Deliver a...

Kindle Edition

Beautiful Evidence

Save

Classic in the field of data visualization, focusing on principles of graphical integrity and effective communication. It provides a theoretical foundation for creating clear and informative visualizations. This book is more valuable as additional reading to provide a deeper understanding of the theory behind data visualization. It is commonly referenced by academics and professionals in the field.

Beautiful Evidence

Hardcover

Communicate effectively with data visualization

What's inside

Syllabus

Traffic lights

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Reviews summary

Practical guidelines for data visualization

Activities

Career center

Reading list

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