Book Image

Data Storytelling with Google Looker Studio

By : Sireesha Pulipati
Book Image

Data Storytelling with Google Looker Studio

By: Sireesha Pulipati

Overview of this book

Presenting data visually makes it easier for organizations and individuals to interpret and analyze information. Looker Studio is an easy-to-use, collaborative tool that enables you to transform your data into engaging visualizations. This allows you to build and share dashboards that help monitor key performance indicators, identify patterns, and generate insights to ultimately drive decisions and actions. Data Storytelling with Looker Studio begins by laying out the foundational design principles and guidelines that are essential to creating accurate, effective, and compelling data visualizations. Next, you’ll delve into features and capabilities of Looker Studio – from basic to advanced – and explore their application with examples. The subsequent chapters walk you through building dashboards with a structured three-stage process called the 3D approach using real-world examples that’ll help you understand the various design and implementation considerations. This approach involves determining the objectives and needs of the dashboard, designing its key components and layout, and developing each element of the dashboard. By the end of this book, you will have a solid understanding of the storytelling approach and be able to create data stories of your own using Looker Studio.
Table of Contents (17 chapters)
Free Chapter
1
Part 1 – Data Storytelling Concepts
5
Part 2 – Looker Studio Features and Capabilities
10
Part 3 – Building Data Stories with Looker Studio

Summary

Data storytelling is a skillful amalgamation of narrative and visual representation. In this chapter, we learned about the design principles that form the foundation for building effective and compelling data visualizations. These principles are rooted in the nature of human vision and perception. We reviewed the centuries-old but still very much applicable Gestalt principles of visual perception and looked at three major guiding themes for data storytelling in this chapter.

We understood that simplicity is the hallmark of a great data story. Keeping things simple and to the point and removing all noise and distractions from the design are key to a great UX. Going further, we learned that organizing the layout of the dashboard to present a cohesive picture and fit the intended narrative is important.

Above all, representing the data accurately should be the main goal. A well-designed dashboard with incorrect information will not only be ineffective but also damaging...