# Data Storytelling with Excel Canonical URL: ## Overview Data alone does not drive decisions; stories do. This hands-on course teaches you how to transform raw data into clear, compelling visual narratives using Microsoft Excel. You will learn a complete storytelling workflow, including how to understand your audience, choose the right visualization, eliminate clutter, focus attention, and deliver insights that inspire action. Grounded in cognitive science and design thinking principles, this course goes beyond showing you how to create a chart by also explaining why some visualizations work better than others. Through real-world examples and practical exercises, you will build the skills needed to communicate complex information with clarity, credibility, and impact, whether you are presenting to executives, colleagues, clients, or broader audiences. ## What you'll learn - Apply a structured framework to define context, audience, and narrative goals before creating a visualization - Select the most effective chart type based on data relationships and your intended message - Recognize and eliminate visual clutter that can obscure meaning - Use preattentive attributes and Gestalt principles to guide audience attention - Think like a designer to create accessible, polished, and intuitive visualizations - Build a data-driven narrative using proven storytelling techniques - Avoid common visualization mistakes and ethical pitfalls - Present data stories with clarity in ways that inform, persuade, and inspire action ## Curriculum #### Module 1: Foundations — Data, Stories, and Audience - Identify what makes a data story work and distinguish data from information - Recognize internal and external data sources and understand how data flows across the internet - Apply audience analysis and learning style awareness to tailor your data story #### Module 2: Reading and Perceiving Visualizations - Interpret a range of chart types including bar, heat map, KPI, stacked, and drilldown visualizations - Apply visual perception principles — order, hierarchy, clarity, and convention — to evaluate any chart - Use Gestalt principles, emphasis, and annotation to guide audience attention #### Module 3: Building Effective Visualizations - Select the appropriate visualization type for comparative, time series, correlation, and geographic data - Use color intentionally and avoid common deceptive chart techniques - Follow a step-by-step process for building a data story using the analytics value chain #### Module 4: Excel for Data Discovery and Analysis - Perform data discovery and integrity checks to qualify data before analysis - Use AutoSum, sorting, filtering, and math functions to explore datasets - Build Pivot Tables and Pivot Charts to summarize and visualize transactional data #### Module 5: AI, Data Quality, and Applied Case Studies - Use AI tools and prompting best practices to confirm and refine a data story - Apply data quality principles and joining techniques to prepare datasets for analysis - Complete hands-on case studies covering duplicate analysis, stratification, Benford's Law, sampling, and analysis automation ## Schedule - Jun 23, 2026 9:00am–4:30pm — Live Online - Jul 29, 2026 9:00am–4:30pm — Live Online - Oct 9, 2026 9:00am–4:30pm — Live Online - Nov 6, 2026 9:00am–4:30pm — Live Online - Dec 4, 2026 9:00am–4:30pm — Live Online ## Instructors ### Dan Rodney — School Director, Instructor, & Senior Course Developer Dan Rodney has been a designer and web developer for over 20 years, creating coursework and leading innovative training initiatives at Noble Desktop. He teaches courses covering Figma, HTML & CSS, Adobe Photoshop, InDesign, Illustrator, and Power BI. Dan has also been at the forefront of integrating AI into design and business workflows, spearheading Noble Desktop’s latest AI course offerings. In addition to teaching and curriculum development, he writes custom scripts for InDesign (Make Book Jacket, Proper Fraction Pro, and more) and works with automation and AI-driven tools in his free time. You can find Dan on X (Twitter), LinkedIn, Facebook, and at danrodney.com. Learn more about [Dan Rodney's](/dan-rodney) background and expertise. ### Garfield Stinvil — Senior Instructor Garfield is an experienced software trainer with over 16 years of real-world professional experience. He started as a data analyst with a Wall Street real estate investment company & continued working in the professional development department at New York Road Runners Organization before working at Noble. He enjoys bringing humor to whatever he teaches and loves conveying ideas in novel ways that help others learn more efficiently. Since starting his professional training career in 2016, he has worked with several corporate clients including Adobe, HBO, Amazon, Yelp, Mitsubishi, WeWork, Michael Kors, Christian Dior, and Hermès. Outside of work, his hobbies include rescuing & archiving at-risk artistic online media using his database management skills. ### Mourad Kattan — Program Director & Instructor Mourad Kattan is an instructor and Program Director of Business, Finance, & Excel at Noble Desktop, teaching classes and designing courses in Excel, finance, accounting, and financial modeling. Before Noble Desktop, Mourad worked as a financial analyst at Credit Suisse and H/2 Capital Partners. In those positions, he used advanced analytical and financial skills to evaluate a variety of investments. Mourad graduated from the University of Pennsylvania summa cum laude and is part of the Beta Gamma Sigma honor society. Learn more about [Mourad Kattan's](/mourad-kattan) background and expertise. ### Christophe Drayton — Instructor Christophe is the instructor for the UX & UI Design Certificate, Figma Advanced, and Generative AI courses at Noble Desktop, and the founder and Chief Design Officer of Kaaiind, which specializes in Applied Artificial Intelligence in the Creative field. With over 20 years in Branding, UX Design, and Accessibility across Europe and the US, Christophe has positively impacted the digital experience of a large spectrum of companies, ranging from big data to startups, government entities to nonprofits, both in the private and public sectors. As an Educator, Christophe has led transformative and award-winning UX programs at Thinkful, the City University of New York (CUNY), and the Brooklyn Public Library, which have opened doors for underrepresented groups in tech who have secured roles at top companies like Google, Uber, Citi, and IBM. Most recently, he has developed innovative curricula about AI in the workplace for the University of Phoenix, LinkedIn Learning, and Coursera. Today, he focuses on developing Allie, one of the first AI-powered, patent-pending color-blind safe and WCAG-compliant design system generator, while concluding his 5-year fundamental research on color vision deficiencies in digital environments. Christophe believes in hands-on, practical application of human-centered strategy and ethical and inclusive design. He is passionate about sharing his knowledge to inspire and empower the next generation of designers, especially those entering the field through nontraditional paths. ## Pricing **Tuition:** $399