Data Storytelling with Google Looker Studio

Data Storytelling with Google Looker Studio

by Sireesha Pulipati
Released October 2022
Publisher(s): Packt Publishing
ISBN: 9781800568761

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Book description

Apply data storytelling concepts and analytical thinking to create dashboards and reports in Looker Studio to aid data-driven decision making

Key Features

  • Gain a solid understanding of data visualization principles and learn to apply them effectively
  • Get to grips with the concepts and features of Looker Studio to create powerful data stories
  • Explore the end-to-end process of building dashboards with the help of practical examples

Book Description

Presenting data visually makes it easier for organizations and individuals to interpret and analyze information. Looker Studio is an easy-to-use, collaborative tool that enables you to transform your data into engaging visualizations. This allows you to build and share dashboards that help monitor key performance indicators, identify patterns, and generate insights to ultimately drive decisions and actions.

Data Storytelling with Looker Studio begins by laying out the foundational design principles and guidelines that are essential to creating accurate, effective, and compelling data visualizations. Next, you’ll delve into features and capabilities of Looker Studio – from basic to advanced – and explore their application with examples. The subsequent chapters walk you through building dashboards with a structured three-stage process called the 3D approach using real-world examples that’ll help you understand the various design and implementation considerations. This approach involves determining the objectives and needs of the dashboard, designing its key components and layout, and developing each element of the dashboard.

By the end of this book, you will have a solid understanding of the storytelling approach and be able to create data stories of your own using Looker Studio.

What you will learn

  • Understand what storytelling with data means, and explore its various forms
  • Discover the 3D approach to building dashboards – determine, design, and develop
  • Test common data visualization pitfalls and learn how to mitigate them
  • Get up and running with Looker Studio and leverage it to explore and visualize data
  • Explore the advanced features of Looker Studio with examples
  • Become well-versed in the step-by-step process of the 3D approach using practical examples
  • Measure and monitor the usage patterns of your Looker Studio reports

Who this book is for

If you are a beginner or an aspiring data analyst looking to understand the core concepts of data visualization and want to use Looker Studio for creating effective dashboards, this book is for you. No specific prior knowledge is needed to understand the concepts present in this book. Experienced data analysts and business intelligence developers will also find this book useful as a detailed guide to using Looker Studio as well as a refresher of core dashboarding concepts.

Table of contents

  1. Data Storytelling with Google Looker Studio
  2. Foreword
  3. Acknowledgements
  4. Contributors
  5. About the author
  6. About the reviewers
  7. Preface
    1. Who this book is for
    2. What this book covers
    3. To get the most out of this book
    4. Download the example code files
    5. Download the color images
    6. Conventions used
    7. Get in touch
    8. Share Your Thoughts
  8. Part 1 – Data Storytelling Concepts
  9. Chapter 1: Introduction to Data Storytelling
    1. Understanding data storytelling
      1. Structuring a data story
      2. Presenting data stories
      3. Data storytelling at work
      4. Essential skills for data storytelling
    2. Building data stories – an approach
      1. Determine
      2. Design
      3. Develop
      4. Walking through an example
    3. Summary
  10. Chapter 2: Principles of Data Visualization
    1. Understanding foundational design principles
      1. Simplicity of design
      2. Organizing the layout
      3. Accuracy of information presented
    2. Reviewing Gestalt principles of visual perception
      1. Proximity
      2. Similarity
      3. Continuity
      4. Closure
      5. Enclosure
      6. Connectedness
      7. Prägnanz
      8. Figure and ground
      9. Focal point
    3. Using color wisely
      1. Use fewer distinct colors
      2. Choose an appropriate color palette and scheme
      3. Use color consistently across the dashboard
      4. Consider inclusive color schemes
    4. Summary
    5. Further reading
  11. Chapter 3: Visualizing Data Effectively
    1. Choosing the right visuals
      1. Scorecards
      2. Pie and donut charts
      3. Bar charts
      4. Line charts
      5. Combo charts
      6. Scatterplot
      7. Tables
      8. Heatmap (matrix)
      9. Treemap
      10. Geographical maps
      11. Others
    2. Avoiding common pitfalls
      1. Overloading a dashboard
      2. Designing a poor or incohesive layout
      3. Not emphasizing key information and a message
      4. Using color excessively or inappropriately
      5. Using dual axes in charts without caution
      6. Inappropriate manipulation of axes
      7. Using inappropriate or complex chart types
    3. Summary
    4. Further reading
  12. Part 2 – Looker Studio Features and Capabilities
  13. Chapter 4: Google Looker Studio Overview
    1. Technical requirements
    2. Getting started with Google Looker Studio
      1. How it works
    3. Working with data sources
      1. Creating a data source
      2. Managing data freshness
      3. Controlling data access
      4. Editing a data source schema
      5. Other common data source operations
    4. Working with reports
      1. Creating a report
      2. Creating a report from a template
      3. Publishing a report
      4. Sharing a report
      5. Other common report operations
    5. Working with Explorer
      1. Creating an Explorer
      2. Exporting from Explorer
      3. Using Explorer in an analyst workflow
    6. Leveraging Looker Studio Gallery
    7. Getting help with Looker Studio
    8. Building your first Looker Studio report – creating the data source
    9. Summary
  14. Chapter 5: Looker Studio Report Designer
    1. Technical requirements
    2. Report Designer overview
      1. Adding charts to the canvas
      2. Adding additional data sources
      3. Adding and managing pages
      4. Choosing a report theme and layout
      5. Defining Report Settings
    3. Working with data for charts
      1. Adding dimensions
      2. Adding metrics
      3. Sorting data in the charts
    4. Implementing filters
      1. Understanding editor filters
      2. Adding an editor filter
      3. Interactive filter controls
    5. Adding design components
    6. Embedding external content
    7. Styling report components
      1. Background and Border
      2. Text styles
      3. Common chart style properties
      4. Configuring style properties in report themes
    8. Building your first Looker Studio report – creating a report from the data source
    9. Summary
  15. Chapter 6: Looker Studio Built-In Charts
    1. Technical requirements
    2. Charts in Looker Studio – an overview
    3. Configuring tables and pivot tables
      1. Table with numbers
      2. Table with bars
      3. Table with drill down
      4. Pivot tables
    4. Configuring bar charts
      1. Columnar bar chart
      2. Horizontal bar chart
      3. Clustered bar chart
      4. Stacked bar chart
    5. Configuring time series, line, and area charts
      1. Line chart
      2. Time series chart
      3. Area chart
    6. Configuring scatter charts
    7. Configuring pie and donut charts
    8. Configuring geographical charts
      1. Geo chart
      2. Google Maps chart
    9. Configuring scorecards
    10. Configuring other chart types
      1. Treemap
      2. Bullet chart
      3. Gauge chart
    11. Building your first Looker Studio report – adding charts
    12. Summary
  16. Chapter 7: Looker Studio Features, Beyond Basics
    1. Technical requirements
    2. Leveraging calculated fields
      1. Organizing dimension values into custom groups
      2. Manipulating text with regular expressions
      3. Using MAX and MIN across multiple fields or expressions
      4. Displaying images and hyperlinks
    3. Using parameters
      1. Parameters and calculated fields
      2. Parameters and connectors
    4. Blending data
      1. Blending disparate data sources
      2. Blending charts
      3. Reaggregating metrics using blending
    5. Adding community visualizations
    6. Creating report templates
    7. Optimizing reports for performance
      1. Optimizing data sources
      2. Optimizing reports
      3. Underlying dataset performance
    8. Summary
  17. Part 3 – Building Data Stories with Looker Studio
  18. Chapter 8: Employee Turnover Analysis
    1. Technical requirements
    2. Describing the example scenario
    3. Building the report - Stage 1: Determine
    4. Building the report - Stage 2: Design
      1. Defining the metrics
      2. Choosing the visualization types
      3. Considering the filters and their interactions
      4. Designing the layout
    5. Building the report - Stage 3: Develop
      1. Setting up the data source
      2. Creating the report
    6. Summary
  19. Chapter 9: Mortgage Complaints Analysis
    1. Technical requirements
    2. Describing the example scenario
    3. Introducing BigQuery
      1. Getting started with BigQuery
      2. Getting data into BigQuery
      3. Analyzing data in BigQuery
    4. Building the dashboard- Stage 1: Determine
    5. Building the dashboard- Stage 2: Design
      1. Choosing visualization types
      2. Considering filters and interactions
      3. Designing the layout
    6. Building the dashboard- Stage 3: Develop
      1. Setting up the data source
      2. Creating a report
    7. Summary
  20. Chapter 10: Customer Churn Analysis
    1. Technical requirements
    2. Describing the example scenario
    3. Building the dashboard- Stage 1: Determine
    4. Building the dashboard- Stage 2: Design
      1. Defining the metrics
      2. Choosing visualization types and filters
      3. Designing the layout
    5. Building the dashboard- Stage 3: Develop
      1. Setting up the data source
      2. Creating a report
    6. Summary
  21. Chapter 11: Monitoring Report Usage
    1. Technical requirements
    2. Usage monitoring overview
    3. Google Analytics primer
      1. Understanding GA reports
    4. Monitoring Looker Studio report usage with GA4
      1. Setting up GA4 for Looker Studio report monitoring
      2. Creating a custom report in GA4
      3. Visualizing in Looker Studio
    5. Exporting GA4 data to BigQuery
    6. Summary
  22. Index
    1. Why subscribe?
  23. Other Books You May Enjoy
    1. Packt is searching for authors like you
    2. Share Your Thoughts

Product information

  • Title: Data Storytelling with Google Looker Studio
  • Author(s): Sireesha Pulipati
  • Release date: October 2022
  • Publisher(s): Packt Publishing
  • ISBN: 9781800568761