There are so many choices to make when we are choosing how to present our work. For data visualisation, most commonly we pick which type of chart will best convey the message. However, we may need to pick if we like to show our analysis by a single dashboard or to go with a story point format instead.

Dashboards typically contain multiple worksheets (each containing one chart) and the whole analysis is presented on a single dashboard. They are quite good in the sense that all the analysis is on a single view and the audience doesn’t have to lose one view to continue to another. That way the audience can refer at the chart the just observed if they want to. This is especially useful when we’re using interactive filters that change the focus over the whole dashboard and going back and forth through pages can be painful.

Story points, as the name implies, focuses on a story. What we would typically use a story points presentation is telling a story where the end isn’t revealed right away. The audience would be led through the story step by step through a beginning, elaboration and an end. This can be particularly useful for presentations or lectures on how to do something step by step.

Useful tips:

• Pick a dashboard when you have filters of highlights that run through the charts.
• Pick a story point if you don’t want the audience to see the answer right away or you want to lead them through a step by step process.
• Most important tip is that typically a story point would contain one worksheet per page, but a whole dashboard can be also dragged into the view allowing for more charts on one page.
• Stories take up some space at the top where the story points titles are so your choices on how you want to structure titles and subtitles are limited.
• Always format all the story pages consistently.