ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses how one optimizes data story for their audience. To begin, they might think about the basic information that they need to communicate through every data graphic. The chapter presents five questions guide for the explanations of data graphics, which includes: What do the data axes mean? What do the encodings mean (the value of the data points)? What level of detail is presented? What data points should they be looking at? and What is the key takeaway by the audience from the chart(s)? It also discusses strategies to help the audience to recognize and process the right visual information and how will they process the right words/oral information. There are three types of explanations that can accompany a chart. How does one decide based on oral presentation, oral static narration, and written explanations? The audience can expand their view of data by comparing and contrasting the difference in the columns of categorical versus time series data.
