It will soon be that time of year again…creating the dreaded annual report. It’s frustrating, year in and year out, putting a great deal of effort and budget into a report that very few people read. It is time for a change. It is time to put that investment into something people will notice.
Change begins with how you look at the annual report. You need to look at it as a visual story being told through the eyes of your data for people to experience. Pages and pages of statistics and numbers often repel people, but engaging, visual stories packaged well do the opposite. They draw people into the mission of the organization and influence action.
Here are a few ways to turn the annual report into a memorable experience…
- Create an interactive data visualization. Many organizations will use Visualization tools such as Tableau to create data visualizations. Tableau is a great first step. We provide advance Tableau customization services when an organization needs to go out of the box with their data story.
- Use data visualization to draw people into action via an engaging visual pdf report. With data visualization, you can condense multiple pages of data into a single visualization. This reduces the overall size of the report and doesn’t overwhelm the reader.
- An interactive data visualization can be updated or revised without sending out a new version. Your annual report as an interactive data visualization could be an ongoing report that updates in real-time as your data is updated which results in a more accurate story of the report.
Annual reports don’t have to be the dreaded project that begins each new year. As a data visualization firm, we love turning data into stories. It is time to turn your data, numbers and statistics into a compelling visualization that people look forward to seeing.