Within the past year, I’ve led 60+ in-person and virtual workshops for 2,800+ participants. Most of these trainings have focused on data visualization best practices and how-to’s; other topics have included dashboard automation, research methods, and data analysis. I can always tell when someone has…
Have a spreadsheet full of employee contact information? Demographic data for people in your community? A list of classmates attending that upcoming reunion? Most of our spreadsheets contain peoples’ names at some point in the project lifecycle. Here are a few shortcuts for dealing with text…
Data visualization is more about strategic thinking than about following steadfast rules. Take a simple line graph, for example. How will you label your line graph? With vertical axis labels and light gray grid lines? With labels directly above or on top of the data…
Some of you are responsible for writing formal reports for external audiences, and all the dissemination strategies that go along with formal reports, like press releases and transmittal letters. And some of you are responsible for sharing information with internal audiences, which typically happens in…
I was recently working with an organization to improve their graphs for an upcoming conference presentation. Notice anything funny about the height of these bars? The shortest bar, for 2012, represents 26,000 youth. But the tallest bar, for 2010, represents 27,000 youth. 26,000 and 27,000…