With so much data and information on the internet at our disposal, it becomes essential to present that information in a way that people can easily understand in order to successfully get your message across.
In this article, we'll explore how you can present information according to your audience's specific needs, and introduce you to popular presentation formats.
You will also learn how to choose the appropriate visual format according to the type of information you have collected.
How to display information according to the specific needs of your audience
We all interpret things differently from others. Some people prefer color visual images, such as charts and infographics, while others like numbers and text as being more intuitive if placed in a table or lists.
For this reason, the way you present the information should be based on the needs of your audience.
Ask yourself the following questions to help you know your target audience:
- What roles or positions does my republican perform?
- What level of knowledge and in what field does my republican work?
For example, let's apply this to the population of a city. If you are providing information to the mayor, key statistics can relate to the number of citizens eligible to vote in next year's election.
This means that you may have to focus on presenting this in a way that the mayor can understand quickly and easily; You can present it in a bar chart that represents the number of people of different age groups who are registered to vote.
If you're going to meet with the director of transportation, you'll probably want to highlight other parts of the census data.
Here the focus will be on the means of transportation people use to get to work - which can be presented in a pie chart showing how many people are on their feet, or who take the train, bus, car or bike to get to work.
Regardless of whether the data is presented in a meeting or published in a report, overburdening your audience is the quickest way to lose their attention; So avoid cramming too much information and make it your goal to present it in an easy way.
Common presentation forms
Now that you know the importance of understanding your audience, how will you decide which template to use for presenting your data? When it comes to presentation, you can choose a visual that best displays the story you're trying to tell.
For example, if you want to present a trend that has been around for a period of time, you can use a line graph, this will show the audience how things have developed or changed over a period of time. Here are some other visuals to try, and the data that goes with them:
- First are tables, which can be used to display smaller data sets, allowing comparisons to be made quickly.
- The second is the pie chart, which is useful for displaying percentages or relative information in an easy way.
- Third, a bar chart, which is a great way to compare related items in a group, where the length of each bar is proportional to the value it represents.
- Fourth, line graphs, which will help you to understand how the data has changed over time. For example, if the number of visits to your website has increased over the past month.
- And finally, heatmaps, which are often used to represent performance by location, for example, which part of your website people click on the most.
Summary
Now we know why understanding your audience is such a big part of providing data, and how knowing their needs can help you create visuals that tell your story accurately.
Browse the Internet and explore the different ways that information can be presented, and see which formats work best for you.
See: Website Analytics: Types & Tools