Although it’s not the main topic of my blog, I think that building an inclusive team is a prerequisite to building a successful product.

That is why I feel like my experience of working for 2 years in a male-dominated team could be of good use for those leading and being part of any team. Over this time, I transitioned from feeling like an outlier at work to feeling like home and eventually making my best friends there.

To begin with,

the start of my career in tech was quite tough. The expectations of my performance were way above my skills. I was finishing my Master’s degree and had to balance between doing a new job and writing a thesis. Finally, the team I joined was of 10 men, and they were, to put it mildly, quite reluctant to accept a new female member into their circle.

All these put a heavy load of pressure on me. I started taking a psychotherapy course and eating 2x as many sweets. In the final run, either the therapy was successful or it was just my extreme patience and resilience, but I finished my Master’s with Honours and was offered a Product Analyst Lead role before I left.

So I would like to share with you my ‘survival’ experience in 3 parts.

1. Overcoming resistance

At first, I had to deal with resistance.

When you work with the same people for a while, you get used to each other and involuntarily create your own ‘bubble’. Accepting another person into this bubble means getting out of your comfort zone. Naturally, this is something the human brain does not like, so this ‘something’ transforms into subconscious resilience. Especially, when the newbie is of a different gender and younger age.

I understood that it takes some time to get used to the presence of a new team member. Therefore, my tactic was to stay in the team, do as many things together as possible, and avoid conflicts by all means.

2. Never eat alone

Then I had to integrate into the team.

Nobody will reject if you ask to join them for a lunch. And this is an informal (also unavoidable) place to talk and know each other better.

I never refused invitations for lunch (neither felt shy to make ones). At those lunches, you can learn so much about the interests of your colleagues — in my case that was driving, hardware, and property renovation. And that was a completely new and amazing experience.

3. I Got A Story To Tell

After overcoming resistance and having a bunch of lunches together, at some point you become comfortable with each other. Aware of each other’s life. Almost like true friends.

The tipping point for me was when my teammates started sharing their funny stories. It took around 6 months for me to get there, but it really depends on the character of the people you work with.

That story-sharing experience almost feels like home. So you want to work from the office more and more often.

Epilogue

In case you are a newbie or your team has got a new member, hope these learnings might help you integrate better. Because ideas and innovation can flourish only in open teams.

Let’s look at the core principles used by Big Tech companies to build compelling visuals.

Making charts that are clear to ourselves is easy. Making charts everyone else understands is hard, time-consuming, and not always feasible. It is better not to visualize the data at all than to make a confusing visual.

Complex charts raise more questions than answers.

If people find the chart too hard to understand, they go back to their smartphones — and you’ve lost their attention. Of course, this is NOT the outcome that someone presenting would like to have. Especially, when a presentation has to convince people to give back their time, money, or both.

What makes charts confusing

Quite often we are so engaged in visualizing data that we forget about the idea this data is intended to communicate. Take, for example, quarterly reporting. Probably, the primary goal of any kind of reporting is to demonstrate how the figures have changed compared to the previous quarter. Sounds simple, but this is how it will most likely be visualized:

“This quarter our sales increased by 7 million dollars”

Looking at the graph, where can we see a 7 million increase? To be honest, it is hard to spot in the first 3 seconds. And if it takes longer than 3 seconds to catch the main idea — you’ve already lost your audience.

What likely makes this chart confusing is that the data shown and the title communicate two different ideas:

• the data shows an upward trend
• the title tells about a 7-million increase

When looking at the chart, people cannot connect what is said to what is shown and feel lost. Then they look only at the chart or listen only to the presenter because doing both is incompatible.

So how to make the data and the story behind it cohesive?

Solving the data storytelling asymmetry

The former example with quarterly reporting shows us the classic data storytelling asymmetry problem: what is said does not equal what is shown. To adjust the data shown to the message behind, try to show only what you are talking about. Just compare these two visuals:

Both of them say the same: “This quarter our sales increased by $7 million”

The chart on the right clearly shows a 7-million uplift, thus making the data and the statement beyond it synchronous. You might also notice that the right-side chart does not have the data from the previous quarters:
when comparing growth between two periods, the data on all the rest is not necessary.

Fewer data also makes the slide more consumable and, thus, easier to catch in 3 seconds. When I have to visualize the data on slides or reports, I try to minimize its presence as much as possible, making only a few numbers stand out.

Three data visualization tips from Big Tech presentations

From time to time I look through the presentations Big Tech companies made to raise money. The numbers and clarity there play a crucial role: one misunderstood number can cost hundreds of dollars of lost capital. I love comparing how data visualization quality in those presentations evolved over time. But despite the progress of time, core principles remained unchanged.

Let me tell you about them.

1. Airbnb: Big numbers get the most attention

People love big numbers. People remember big numbers, and a few big numbers convince people way better than tens of charts. Airbnb founders also know it: when describing the rental market, they showed only two numbers:

Looks strong, isn’t it?
As we will hear later, those numbers were convincing enough to raise $600K from Sequoia Capital and Y Ventures.

2. TikTok: Chart legends are in the past

As we saw from the previous chart, visualization of absolute numbers is relatively easy. However, when it comes to relative numbers, like segment’s share in total, the visual part of it is tricky.

Have a glance at this chart:

Here the numbers are clear. Though it is hard to get what those numbers represent. When looking at the chart, one has to do a mental exercise: memorize the segment colors on the chart, go to legend, and match legend values with chart colors to get what those colors stand for. The legend breaks the link between chart segments and their names. This, in turn, makes it harder to understand the chart.

Look at how TikTok solved this problem when visualizing its user age:

TikTok placed user age right next to the segments showing the size of age groups. This helped them link the size of each segment with its name.

One more example with a line chart:

The simple trick of placing segment names right next to the values can help you make your chart cleaner and communicate its meaning more efficiently.

So how about secret number 3?

3. PayPal: Dynamic charts need data labels

Can you think of any analysis not showing data changes over time? Either daily, monthly, or quarterly — dynamic charts will have their place in your analysis as well.

Given the huge amount of templates with bar charts and line charts, you may think that creating one is not a big deal. But since our goal is to create a clear chart, it may take some extra knowledge to get there.

This is how the bar chart from a template looks like:

Quite often it can be seen in someone’s research or company-level presentation. But what questions does it help to answer?

• What was the sales growth over time? —Unclear.
• How much volume did the company make last month? — The number is abstract.

The chart templates give a good foundation to visualize the data but still need manual intervention to communicate the numbers better.

Look at how PayPal visualized its quarterly account growth:

Comparing it with the previous chart, you might spot a few differences:

1. On PayPal’s chart, each bar has its data label. In general, it is a good practice to add data labels straight to the bar chart and delete Y-axis values on the left.
2. Each time period has its calculated percentage growth against the previous period. This helps to understand whether the number increased or decreased against the previous quarter and by how much.
3. Absolute values on the bars and percentages on the growth line can be seen clearly and do not clash with each other. Make sure the font color of the data labels is contrasting with the chart background. So that your audience could easily see the numbers.

And that’s it!

Let’s recap what we learned from the article:

• Data storytelling asymmetry happens when a chart visual and its title communicate different ideas. Try to visualize only the numbers you are talking about. Showing a few big numbers as Airbnb did might be helpful here.
• Legend does not add value to the chart and breaks the link between chart segments and their names. Place segment names right next to the chart values to keep the visual cohesive.
• When showing data changes over time, calculate the percentage of those changes and add absolute amounts to the chart. This would explain the size and direction of data changes, whether it was growing or declining over time, and how much.

Thanks for reading the article, now you are one step closer to making clear and compelling data visuals 🎉

You can read more of my articles on data and product here:

• Product Metrics Map: What It Is and How to Build It
• How to Check Analysis Quality in 3 Steps
• How to Build a Retention Model for Your Product

Links to the presentations mentioned in the article:

• Airbnb pitch deck
• TikTok pitch deck
• PayPal pitch deck

If you would like to receive more of these articles — feel free to Follow my page as well as share in comments topics you are interested to learn more about😉💡