Before your reader dives into the data, you want to set the context. How? At the top of your story, add a slice that gives a title, describes the data, even tells people what kinds of questions they can answer.

Juicebox is designed to do more than just show data visualizations. You can use text to explain what’s being shown in the data. This text could include:

So much to show...so little attention. Recognize that your audience may be distracted or have a short attention span. Focus is critical in a good data story. This can mean:

Let a trusted colleague review your data story and ask them to identify anything that they think isn’t totally necessary to get your message across. If it's not necessary, it should be removed. The cost of more content is high when you risk losing the attention of your audience.

By default, Juicebox will layout your sections and slices vertically. In this way, your audience can read through the content from top to bottom and your filtered selections will pass down the page.

However, sometimes it will make sense to take advantage of the alternative layout options:

Within sections, you can layout slices horizontally. Horizontal layouts will help put more information on the screen at once. They can be useful for displaying groups of measures side-by-side. You might also try laying out a bar chart and trend chart horizontally to visually connect the data in those two charts. Generally, it isn’t a good idea to show more than two or three slices horizontally.

Within slices, you can also choose the layout of the text relative to a visualization. Placing the text to the left of the visualization is an effective way to make your data story easier to read.

A data story will often have multiple sections, perhaps reflecting the three-parts of a story. In Juicebox, you can make visual breaks between sections using color. Find the color selector on the top of each section in the Story Designer. By visually breaking up your sections, you’ll help your readers understand where the logical breaks are in your story.

Getting your data ingredient labels right is a small and important design choice. Often when you load data into Juicebox, the data columns may not be written in a way that is easy for your audience to understand. We’ve made it easy in Juicebox to change those labels. What is the simplest and clearest way to describe the data ingredient? Will your audience understand any abbreviations or acronyms you are using?