The Basics of Data Storytelling

Let’s continue with Step 2 – Identify the points you want to emphasize from your data. The Data Storytelling is everywhere!. There are so many charts swirling around us, but many of them can be simply bucketed into 5 categories:

• COMPONENT COMPARE
• ITEM COMPARE
• TIME SERIES COMPARE
• FREQUENCY (DISTRIBUTION) COMPARE
• CORRELATION COMPARE

The Day-to-Day Life Examples

Let’s continue with the fourth one – FREQUENCY DISTRIBUTION COMPARE.

To easily illustrate from day-to-day life what it looks like, here are the next examples:

DIFFERENT SURVEYS

In a survey of 100 people, 38 have no pets. 25 have one. 17 have two. 6 have three, and so on. The frequency distribution is concentrated around the options “no pets” and “one pet.” These are the most common choices.

SHOPPING TRENDS

A supermarket tracks how many times a fruit is bought in one transaction in a week. On Mondays, fruit was bought 89 times. On Tuesday, 72 times. On Wednesday, bought 53 times. On Thursday, 72 times and on Friday, 105 times. The distribution shows that fruit is bought most often on Fridays and Mondays, indicating a concentration around those days.

TEST SCORES IN SCHOOL

After a math test, scores are grouped as follows: 60–69 (2 students). The scores 70–79 were achieved by 5 students. The 80–89 range had 10 students. Finally, 90–100 was achieved by 3 students. Most students scored in the 80–89 range, resulting in a concentrated distribution.

BATTERY LIFE TESTING

A company tests 30 batteries and records their lifespans in minutes. Most batteries last between 390–399 minutes, so the distribution is concentrated around this interval, indicating typical performance.

How Frequency Distribution Appears in Life

• Identifying Popular Choices: It helps businesses know which products sell best or teachers see which topics students prefer.
• Spotting Typical Outcomes: It shows what is “normal” or most in a group. For example, it indicates the typical number of cars per household.
• Visualizing Data: Frequency distributions are often shown in bar charts or tables. This makes it easy to see concentrations. You can also compare categories easily.

THE SUMMARY OF THE DAILY EXAMPLES

Summary

Anytime your story uses words like range, concentration, distribution, frequency, majority, etc., you can almost be sure that you will use charts in the FREQUENCY DISTRIBUTION COMPARE section.