Storytelling communicates data or presents statistical results by stressing the importance of audience needs and maintaining focus on the author’s primary message.

Effective data dissemination is one of the most critical tasks undertaken by national statistical offices (NSOs), especially concerning census results. The ultimate goal is to disseminate statistical data in ways that will be useful for varied users, will promote public interest in data, and will help data users to make informed decisions. With storytelling, NSOs can achieve each of these goals more effectively.

This technical note is part one of a two part series on Communicating With Census Data. This series illustrates the importance of conveying census results to a wide audience through the production of relatable and engaging data products.

This technical note discusses what storytelling is, why telling stories with data is important, and how to communicate with your audience though effective messages. It also discusses how to choose the most effective medium to tell your story (e.g., blog, infographic, brief, report) and the importance of incorporating an organization’s statistical and corporate identity standards into their data products.

• This technical note is available in both English, French, and Russian.