Case Study: How RBC Economics Uses everviz to Transform Complex Financial Data into Engaging, Interactive Charts

For a premier research team like RBC Economics, data is the core of everything they do. But managing massive economic datasets comes with a unique creative hurdle: how do you share deep, granular insights without completely overwhelming your audience or cluttering your design?

Six years ago, RBC Economics set out to solve this exact problem. By moving away from static, traditional report formats and partnering with everviz, they completely transformed how their audience interacts with financial data.

To get an inside look at this transformation, we spoke with Viktoriya Panahova, Analyst, Publishing, Design and Communications at RBC Economics, who shared her firsthand experiences of upgrading their digital strategy.

The Challenge: Moving Beyond the PDF

Prior to adopting interactive data visualizations, RBC Economics faced a common roadblock for research teams: all of their reports were exclusively published in PDF format.

When the team decided to shift their primary focus to their website, they realized static charts simply couldn’t cut it anymore. They needed an interactive and captivating alternative to spark user engagement.

As Viktoriya notes:

“The biggest challenge with static charts is that it’s impossible to display all the data points from large datasets without cluttering the design and losing readability.”

Today, RBC Economics uses data visualizations as interactive elements directly on their website, as well as static images and short, animated videos across their social media platforms.

They define a visualization as a success when it is compact and easy to read at a glance, yet still allows users to thoroughly track the specific data they need.

Here is a video with an everviz animated chart:

The Solution: A Flexible, Brand-First Platform

RBC Economics needed a solution that could power their digital platforms while keeping workflows efficient. everviz fit the bill perfectly.

1. Frictionless Publishing and Distribution

Distributing charts became an afterthought rather than a chore. Embedding an interactive chart on the RBC Economics website is now as simple as copying a code snippet. When it comes to social channels like LinkedIn, everviz provides automated sizing options tailored for different formats alongside custom dimension capabilities.

2. Localization Made Easy

Operating in Canada means catering to a bilingual audience. RBC Economics leverages everviz’s built-in localization features to seamlessly format charts for both English and French audiences, ensuring a consistent user experience.

3. Automated Branding Templates

To maintain a streamlined workflow, RBC Economics embedded and saved their precise brand colors and fonts directly into everviz.

• Ready-Made Themes: Every new chart starts from a pre-approved brand template.
• Speed to Market: Instead of building from scratch, creators only need to swap out the data and update the text, saving massive amounts of production time.

The Results: Interactive Experiences That Users Love

The transition from flat, heavy documents to a dynamic data experience has been an undeniable success.

• Clarity Without Compromise: By utilizing everviz’s interactive features, website users can effortlessly hover their cursor over any specific point on a chart to see exact numbers. This keeps the overall design clean and readable without sacrificing data depth.
• Achieving the Goal: RBC Economics successfully found a way to showcase immense volumes of data interactively without overwhelming the page layout.
• Positive Feedback: Both internal stakeholders and website users have praised the format, loving how easy it is to track detailed financial metrics inside such clean, compact charts.

Pro-Tips for Other Chart Designers

Based on her six-year journey with the platform, Viktoriya offers two vital pieces of advice for teams looking to upgrade their data visualization game:

• Trust the interactivity: Don’t try to force every single number onto a static view. Let a clean, elegant design capture the reader’s attention first, and let the hover tooltips do the heavy lifting for the granular data.
• Lock in your themes early: Set up your brand templates right away. Once your unique brand colors and fonts are saved in the system, spinning up new charts takes just minutes.