(Not Jacob-Elordi-in-Frankenstein cute. But a monstrous mess.)

A mix of font sizes, colors, alignment, spacing, and graph styles.

Text heavy.

Boring graphs.

Barely alive.

You deserve Jacob-Elordi-as-Heathcliff gorgeous slides!

Professional. Streamlined. Intentional. Visuals on every slide. Skimmable. Accessible.

Slide Templates help you avoid Frankensteined Slides

Templates also eliminate the “stare at a blank slide” tax. You start with a ready-made structure that does the heavy lifting for you.

Templates save hours of formatting time. A good template bakes in hierarchy, spacing, and structure—so you can focus on your message, not nudging text boxes pixel by pixel.

Templates scale your best design practices across the whole org. Even non‑designers can produce clean, on‑brand slides because the template does the heavy lifting.

Do you really have slide templates…?

Most companies I work with think they have templates – but they don’t.

Here’s how to check: When you insert a new slide, do you see Microsoft’s defaults? Or your custom-designed slides?

Setting Up the Slide Master

Templates live behind the scenes, in the Slide Master.

Go to View –> Slide Master and make sure you’ve got ’em there.

Heads up: The Slide Master is a massive pain. Counterintuitive. All sorts of quirks.

Your Turn

What sorts of questions do you have about the Slide Master?

Comment here and let me know.

I might even make a new blog post or YouTube video for you.

Are you sharing the replays with attendees?

Captions increase the accessibility of our recordings, making it easier for attendees with hearing issues, audio/tech glitches, and non-English speakers to follow our ideas.

In this lesson, you’ll learn about embedded captions with Sue Griffey.

(Embedded captions means that the captions are “stuck” or “burned” inside the video file itself, not as an extra button that viewers have to remember to click.)

Resources Mentioned

https://www.descript.com

Transcript

[00:00:00] I’m Ann Emery. You’re watching Dataviz on the Go.

And in this video, you’ll learn about embedded captions from Sue Griffey.

All right. This is a, a progression of how I’ve done in captioning as Ann, working with Ann over the last four years, made me more and more aware of accessibility. And LinkedIn also, who were a couple of years ago, really focused on making sure we caption everything.

Um, I took to the opportunity when I do mentor time, and most of these slides are from the half hour professional development topic I do twice a month, um, to explore how to use My tools and the best tool was Descript because I could use it for editing and it also embeds captions. I wanted them embedded because people I work with globally told me they don’t always have the opportunity to turn on captions.

People get confused in YouTube about where to go [00:01:00] and that way I knew whatever was already done. So, this is now just the last, I would say, four to six months in, because this is a screenshot, and traditionally in the bottom of the screen I would put the footer for whatever reference I was extracting from.

And this is when Descript went from one kind of caption to All sorts of captions. They now have a range of them, and this was the default one. It’s huge, but it was like, I just got to get it done. So I did get it done. Not pretty, but it was there, and I do hear people tell me it’s useful. Then I realized I could take the time to adjust the captions, but what was bothering me was the fact that it overwrites things.

Yes, there was a lot here on this slide, but it What I was saying is this woman has a way to evaluate your biases. You can go see it later. I brought it to [00:02:00] Ann and to Office Hours to say, I really am needing to have captions in a way, and I’m thinking that I need to adjust my, my band at the bottom to make it wide enough just for the captions.

So, I’m I told Ann that I would try it out and then I came to office hours with captions and discovered that, um, with moving it around, I have a 1. 1 inch band at the bottom and Descript will let you do a single line, but sometimes it pushes you to a double line anyway. Add. a readable size. I think this was 36.

And Ann said to me, Sue, wouldn’t it be great if you could, I thought first you were saying, Ann, wouldn’t it be great if you could make the gray match each section, and I have three sections, a blue section, a green, a red section, and a green section. I know, well, I realized that when we talked. You were [00:03:00] saying make it transparent, and could you make the, the, font match what’s the font you use on screen.

Descript lets you change the size of it and it has some fonts, but this font was the closest I found to my font. Um, so this is what I now can do with Descript. I still have one troubleshooting thing. This is with a transparent background, Ann, but it still sort of puts a block around it. It’s like it’s a little darker.

And I don’t know if I’m choosing the wrong transparent and I haven’t had enough time to futz with it. But it now comes up as by itself. Anything that I need to for URLs are now above the red band. And I’m really happy with how it looks. It doesn’t look sloppy. And my, my, basically my available space is in the white.

So I don’t always have full bleed photos unless I’m doing a, a, uh, a [00:04:00] slide separator. But this is how it is, and I’m thrilled with it. I love this progression. I love the idea of just making the footer of the slide. What did you say? 1. 1 inches? 1. 1 inches. Measurement. Yep. Is that set up in your SlideMaster?

It is. Can I show you my SlideMaster? I’m so proud of it. I’d love to see it. Everything matches. Everything’s labeled except the dark red. I thought I had renamed that green, but yeah, I’m so happy with it and it makes me so restful now because I was trying to use a different one for teaching and a different one.

Now I’m like, nope, just one set. So, yeah, that’s, it’s all in there, everything’s set, and no problem with, the only thing I have to do, Descript doesn’t let you set an automatic setting for your captions, you have to choose the caption, I have to change the, um, size, I change the size from 50 down to 28, which is what I want.

[00:05:00] What most of my, this slide, um, the last slide I showed you was. It comes out looking professional and I can manage just fine. Can you talk me through, like, what do I need to do to do the embedded caption magic that you’ve done? I literally don’t know where to click. Yeah, go to the far right. And the second from the bottom choice in that panel, this is called Underlord, has all these helpful things.

And I use the classic one. It’s about two thirds of the way down below the yellow. I use classic. So, click on it so I can show you what comes up in the panel. So, you see it inserts the box, and you can adjust the size of the box. You can move it all the way down, you can make it smaller, you can make it wider.

So click on the, click on the box itself[00:06:00]

and it should, I’m trying to remember where it comes up, maybe it’s, there it is, yeah. So you see it automatically comes up in white and 50 with man rope whatever. So click on the white. Now that’s where I was choosing the transparency next to the Great. To the right of that. I chose that as transparent.

That was the lightest thing I could find. Yeah, and you know, it’s interesting then for me to think through what’s the opposite of that I have to do, because these aren’t slides, this is Excel, so I need the filled background. Right. And then it’s like, where does it fit with the webcam? Because a lot of times in the editing, I’ll go from full screen to the inset webcam and back again to keep it interesting.

Yeah. I think this webcam is set to be Whatever percent in Camtasia, like 25%. So when I do make it small, it is consistently that size. So I literally didn’t even know this was [00:07:00] all possible. This is so fascinating. You move the box over, make it wide, make it small. Yeah. Um, but then let me show you, hit the classic button.

under classic, and that’s where you get the border and the background. So background is where I then, um, yeah. But yeah, that’s your fill color, so you want to change that to black, uh, to, you want to leave that white or whatever. Oh, you’re purple. I don’t think I want to do purple. I think that would be too hard to read.

Um, I’m just noticing they have an upper in here. Oops, I didn’t mean to click on that red. Um, black? No, white. White. White on black. Just go down to the white button. Go to the color panel down below and hit the white button. This is my font color. I don’t know. Font. Black font. Okay, then go to background.

Yeah. White background. [00:08:00] With maybe a hair. Transparency?

Nope.

Yeah, you’ve got, it’s just bolded around, it’s just white around the day, the text itself, not the whole box. Active word, that’s an interesting one. Yeah, there’s, I mean, it’s fun to play with all of these. Yeah. I’m working with someone now who’s neurodivergent and I chatted with her the other day about what’s not working for her in the course, and she loves captions, but I said, do you want it where it highlights each word?

And she said, no, that would be too distracting, so. Do export at the top left. Yep. And then You hit video. I export the transcript first and then I export videos. So, but that’s just me. I like [00:09:00] to have a word doc of everything because people often want to go back and see what the actual wording was that we struggled through on their CVs or whatever.

I think Descript is still the captioning tool. It is. I don’t think there’s one that has more features and more correctness than this one out there. New tech gets invented all the time, but. If anybody here wants to try one, Descript is the starting point. They have a free trial, too. I forget how much it is after that, but I’m sure the site spells out the different levels of subscriptions.

Thank you so much, Sue. You’re welcome. It’s fun to geek out on this.

Creating a Customer Service Visual Framework

I present a lot and have given customer service presentations in different forms and fashions for over 15 years. I usually get compliments on my presentations, but I wanted to make sure the information I was presenting was sticking with people. I needed to refresh a customer service presentation and decided to use it as an opportunity to apply the lessons from Powerful Presentations I was learning.

I had my framework in my head, but I was skeptical that with my skill level I could create something useful and decent to look at.  I am a librarian, not a graphic designer.

Begin at the Very Beginning…..It’s a Very Good Place to Start

Despite my doubts, I began.  Focusing on my outline, I had 5 areas I wanted to touch on.  I matched icons to each and then thought about what I could construct to bring them all together.  I realized that the Center Humanity portion was a target with four sections.  So that is where I started. 

Be Literal

I decided to be very literal and created a circle and wrote center humanity and put it in the center of the target icon.

This was the central point I wanted people listening me to take away.  That each person they interact with is another human being and we should remember that first and foremost in every customer service interaction.

Combine the Elements

I then put one section near each of the quadrants on the target and added the wording below.  I gave each its own color so that in my slide deck each would have a separate color to help tie people’s brains to that section. 

At this point, I had done nothing too hard, downloaded a few icons, recolored them, and added wording.  I could have stopped here and I think it would have been ok.

Pause for Reflection

But I chose to get some feedback to see if I could make it better.

At this point I paused and brought it to Office Hours for suggestions. 

Shout out to all the fabulous people who shared ideas with me and helped make this visual framework more meaningful for my presentation.

Tweak for More Impact

I received lots of great ideas and my head was spinning with all the different ways I could possibly update my visual to resonate more with my audience.  I decided to start by making the target look more like a target while keeping the center humanity in the center. 

Add More Visual Cues

I wanted to make the four other sections clearer and tie things together. I took a duplicate of the target icon and recolored it and then used the crop tool to shrink it to only one quadrant.

This is what it looked like when I was finished. 

Rinse & Repeat

I then did the same for Green, Red, and Purple.

Four Quadrants

This is what it looked like when I was finished with all the quadrants. 

I was liking where it was going and thought this would stick in people’s heads better than the original. 

Keep Centering Humanity

I was hooked on keeping the circle and plopped it on top of all the different graphics I had just created. 

This would be an easy graphic to chunk and use in my slide decks and I felt like I was on the right track.

Adding Icons

I changed some of the icons after thinking through what I was trying to convey and added them by each section. 

I was getting closer, but it still didn’t feel finished to me.

Librarians Love Words

I thought I could get away with leaving the words off and just having the icons, but it looked too bare to me.  I used Word Art and after a bunch of trial and error got the words to curve at the right angle. 

It now felt complete. 

I used the Group tool to group all of the separate graphics together and saved it as an Image.

Success!

And while I thought it was pretty great, I didn’t know if it would be helpful for attendees.  But it was! 

In the feedback, one attendee wrote that they printed off the framework and put it on their desk as a reminder to them to follow the 5 steps. 

That made my day and solidified for me why having a visual framework is so helpful.  We don’t want to just give people presentations, we want what we share to stay with people and be useful. 

You can choose from these 6 classes:

• Simple Spreadsheets
• Great Graphs
• Great Graphs in Excel
• Report Redesign
• Dashboard Design
• Powerful Presentations

One class focuses on data analysis (cleaning and tabulating our raw datasets to get them ready for graphs).

Two classes focus on core data visualization skills (translating technical information for non-technical audiences; making sure we don’t just have bar charts; and using colors and fonts that are branded, accessible, and intuitive).

Three classes are advanced, sort of. I call them deep dives because they focus just on reports, or dashboards, or presentations. You’ll need to have your graphs created and edited first (skills taught in previous classes) so they can feed into those reports, dashboards, and presentations.

In this article, you’ll learn more about each of the classes.

Simple Spreadsheets

How to Analyze Data from Start to Finish in Excel

Need to make sense of spreadsheets? Not sure where to start? Chances are, there’s a faster and easier way to get it done.

In this class, you’ll practice a step-by-step process for exploring, cleaning, analyzing, and tabulating your dataset. These spreadsheet skills will save your time, energy, and sanity.

You’ll learn how to:

1. organize your brand new datasets by adding filters, freezing panes, and keeping raw data separate from clean data;
2. merge disparate spreadsheets together with lookup formulas;
3. clean and recode messy data (by checking for missing data and duplicates, and by transforming variables);
4. run descriptive statistics and frequencies; and
5. explore data more fully through pivot tables.

This workshop is highly interactive. Each section begins with a demonstration followed by a break for hands-on practice. For example, in the Analyze Data with Pivot Tables module, the instructor will show how to insert a pivot table and drag-and-drop variables. Then, you’ll practice right away, and you’ll be expected to ask questions whenever you get stuck.

Learn More

What Participants Are Saying

“As a 20+ year Excel user I can not BELIEVE the things I didn’t know, and that I learned to master in moments from Ann’s brilliant and engaging teaching. This course is by far the most well prepared and executed online course I have ever taken… The course materials are actual Excel files embedded with the skills, tricks and formulas… As far as who this course is best suited to, I think it could help Excel users of all levels, from beginners to advanced (which is what I would have called myself before taking this course and realizing my knowledge gaps!). For beginners it would be a one-stop shop of all you need to know to excel at Excel. For long-time users it will provide short-cuts, helpful formulas and other tricks you might not have known were hiding in this program. I truly can’t say enough about it, and have already recommended it to research colleagues, data/social indicator experts and policy folks.” – Lynn Davey, Ph.D, Davey Strategies

“I am a university researcher and have a lot of familiarity with data collection and statistical analysis programs/platforms (e.g. SPSS, SAS, etc.), but needed a low-cost, widely-used data collection and analysis tool I could recommend and teach to the community partners with whom I conduct research. I have known for a long time that Excel was likely the solution to my problem, but could never find time to learn to use it, except in the most basic ways (sort, sum). Last summer, I took Ann Emery’s Simple Spreadsheets course and dramatically improved my Excel acuity. *Plus* the course was fun, straightforward, and immediately useful… This course was more than worth the time and money I put into it, and I continue to learn and benefit from it (almost a year later). I highly recommend this course!” – Sarah V. Suiter, Vanderbilt University

Case Studies from Past Participants

You can view participants’ before-after transformations here:

• 6 Data Cleaning Steps to Save You Millions by Hudson Kelley, HOPE International

Great Graphs

A Software-Agnostic Introduction to Accessible Data Visualization

Are your takeaway findings getting lost? Busy graphs can slow down the viewer’s comprehension, increase cognitive load, and fail to inform decision-making processes. With intentional editing, we can design graphs that inform and inspire.

During this class, you’ll walk through a step-by-step process that you can apply to your own projects.

You’ll learn how to:

1. customize your visualizations for each of your audiences (technical vs. non-technical, internal vs. external, etc.);
2. choose the right chart type for your dataset (hex maps vs. choropleth maps, donuts vs. waffles, spaghetti lines vs. small multiples, etc.);
3. select an appropriate software program for your needs;
4. declutter your visuals so that viewers’ attention is focused on the data; and
5. use colors and fonts that are branded, accessible, and intuitive.

Learn More

What Participants Are Saying

“I would often see charts, graphs, and other data visuals in journal articles, and think to myself, ‘Wow, this is horrible; I have no idea what I am supposed to learn from this!” But I had no idea how to make it better or offer constructive suggestions.  After Great Graphs, I learned about how to select the best type of graph and how to make it visually appealing to the intended audience.  My own publications and posters have also benefitted—no more hard-to-read charts filled with clutter!” – John R. Heberger, Epidemiologist, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Case Studies from Past Participants​

You can view participants’ before-after transformations here:

• A Before-After One-Pager Makeover by Lillian Haley, Haley Evaluation & Research Services

Great Graphs in Excel

How to Make Beginner, Intermediate, and Advanced Graphs from Start to Finish

You’re familiar with all the research-based dataviz best practices. Now, let’s get down to business and make those graphs in Excel!

During this class, you’ll make beginner, intermediate, and advanced graphs in Excel.

You’ll walk through three levels of Excel vizardry:

1. First, in Level 1, learn the in’s and out’s of overused native charts (bar charts, pie charts, line charts, and more).
2. In Level 2, you’ll make underused native charts, like tree maps, sunburst diagrams, and geographic maps.
3. Finally, in Level 3, you’ll make non-native charts–charts that require sophisticated workarounds to produce in Excel, like dot plots, b’arc charts, small multiples bar charts, population pyramids, waffle charts, and more.

Learn More

What Participants Are Saying

“Before the course, I presented numbers narrated by text…yawn. Now, I present numbers as a story with visuals, sometimes as simple as sparklines, which engages staff and invites their insights! The Great Graphs in Excel course helped me see and share what story our data is telling. This course is best for people who learn through interaction, not just watching videos and reading tutorials. Ann K Emery responds to students’ questions and specific data scenarios, has us try the solutions real-time, and engages and encourages her students (probably the most impactful part of the course…) I especially appreciate her walking us through her thought process as she demonstrates the procedures she’s developed. It’s like having an officemate who’s both a whiz and mentor, which helps make me a better analyst.” – Ellen Shepherd, Program analyst at a nonprofit

“This course helped me to see Excel as a flexible tool for a wide range of data management and analysis tasks… Much more than just tables and calculations!” – Bob Coulter, Missouri Botanical Garden

“My trend is definitely upward in this course. I’m learning EVERYTHING about graphs and #dataviz. Even the first couple lessons taught me so much useful formatting information about Excel that are already saving me so much time and ensuring my #professionalbranding consistency. And I’m looking forward to making graphs and charts that can convey complex information in an effective way!” – Sue Griffey, Founder, SueMentors

“Enrolling in courses at Depict Data Studio is one of the best professional developments I have ever made… After eight months with Ann, I was able to turn my blah capabilities statement into something I am happy to share! I could go on and on about the many design and data visualization lessons I’ve learned from Ann. Instead, I’ll end by saying that books and blogs are excellent resources. I have several books and subscribed to many blogs. However, they do not compare to live and on-demand instruction of Depict Data Studio.” – Lillian Haley Ph.D., MSW, ChFC®, President and Owner, Haley Evaluation & Research Services (HERS)

Case Studies from Past Participants​

You can view participants’ before-after transformations here:

• 3 Simple Steps that Took My Graph from Good to Great by Maia Werner-Avidon, evaluator

Report Redesign

How to Transform Text-Heavy Technical Reports into Visual, Skimmable Reports

Were you trained to write lengthy technical reports with methodological details? Technical reports are a great fit for technical audiences, like our peers working in public health. But what about our non-technical audiences, like policymakers or the general public?

In this class, you’ll learn how to translate technical data for non-technical audiences. You’ll walk through 3 layers of the Report Redesign pyramid.

Here’s what you’ll learn and practice:

• In Level 1: Go Beyond the Report, you’ll learn how to add a variety of dissemination formats to your project (not just reports) in order to meet a variety of audiences’ needs. You’ll also learn about the 30-3-1 Approach to Reporting, visual appendices, and the 8 ingredients for designing one-pagers.
• In Level 2: Structure Your Report, you’ll learn how to design a 20-minute cover. Then you’ll visually chunk your data with color-coded chapters. These are the big-picture, structural edits that make data-dense reports easier to skim and navigate.
• Finally, in Level 3: Design Each Page, you’ll fine-tune the graphs and paragraphs included on each page. You’ll see a checklist of 15 Ideas for Visuals, and then practice adding more visuals to each page. You’ll also edit your writing to ensure that it’s accessible and inclusive.

Learn More

What Participants Are Saying

“Investing in the Report Redesign course from Depict Data Studio was one of the best decisions I have made in my career. Before the course, I was writing long, wordy reports that I thought were visually appealing because I included tables and bar charts; I had no idea the options I had within software I already had access to. Now, I create impactful one-pagers and reports that are visually appealing and even more importantly, get read by my colleagues. I know that there are more than 15 types of visuals to include in reports, how to utilize my company’s brand to my advantage, and more. I have been complimented on the new look of my reports by coworkers and external stakeholders, and continue to have “aha” moments of how I can continue to apply Ann’s advice as access to the course never expires. I cannot recommend this course enough. Thanks Ann and Depict Data Studio!” – Olivia Power, Data and Reporting Specialist, National FFA Organization

Case Studies from Past Participants

You can view participants’ before-after transformations here:​

• Upping Your Reporting Game–with PowerPoint! by Ann Webb Price, Community Evaluation Services
• Three Ways Intentional Data Viz Has Elevated My Work by Kathy Dowell, The Evaluation Group

Dashboard Design

How to Design Static and Interactive Dashboards in Excel

Why wait until the end of the year to write a lengthy report when you can share data early and often with dashboards? Your organization’s leaders have more important things to do than read lengthy reports. Dashboards get to the point so that leaders can understand the numbers and take action.

During this class, you’ll make both static and interactive dashboards in Excel.

First, you’ll see sample dashboards from a dozen organizations like yours. You’ll hear share the story behind each dashboard so that you can learn about each dashboard’s audience and goals. For example, some of the dashboards were designed to track progress towards goals. Other dashboards were designed to help organizations compare their different program areas. You can decide which elements of each dashboard would be most applicable to your own work.

Then, you’ll design a few static dashboards in Excel. You’ll create sparklines and uncover some of Excel’s best kept secrets, like Conditional Formatting. These dashboards will live inside of Excel and get shared with stakeholders as PDFs through email or as printed handouts during meetings. Static dashboards are a great fit for non-technical audiences who only have time to skim a one-page email attachment.

Finally, you’ll design an interactive dashboard in Excel. You’ll turn your regular table into an Excel Table; you’ll tabulate your dataset with pivot tables; you’ll design pivot charts to showcase your key findings; and you’ll link everything together with slicers. Interactive dashboards are a great fit for technical audiences who have time to explore the data themselves.

Learning Objectives

After the one-day workshop, participants will be able to:

• describe when static vs. interactive dashboards are most useful (e.g., for technical vs. non-technical audiences);
• create sparklines, data bars, and heat tables;
• adjust their dashboard to be printer- and PDF-ready to create static dashboards; and
• insert Excel Tables, pivot tables, pivot charts, and slicers to create interactive dashboards.

Target Audience

Researchers, evaluators, and scientists who want to create monthly, quarterly, or annual dashboards inside no-code software you already have, like Excel.

Level

Intermediate/advanced.

Suggested Prerequisites

You’ll gain the most from this course if you’ve already taken two other courses from this instructor: (1) Simple Spreadsheets (to start practicing formulas and pivot tables) and (2) Great Graphs (to start practicing data visualization skills, like chart-choosing, branding, and accessibility).

Equipment Needed

A desktop/laptop computer (not a tablet or phone).

PCs preferred over Macs.

Webcams suggested for virtual classes so that staff can fully participate.

Software Programs Used

Excel is required.

Newest version preferred (called “Microsoft 365”).

Materials Included

• 1 day of live instruction (e.g., 9-4 on-site, or 9-12 two days in a row virtually)
• Access to recordings for 1 year so you can re-watch anything you’d like
• Ebook
• PDF’d slides
• ~10 templates with step-by-step instructions for making static and interactive dashboards in Excel

What Participants Are Saying

“This course helped me to design a visually engaging and easy to interpret surveillance report for our State Health Department. This course offers so many great Excel tips and techniques in such an organized way. The skills I learned from this course were extremely easy to apply to an actual project. Furthermore, the course examples provided me with so many ideas and inspiration for future projects.” – Melissa Lurie, MPH, Epidemiologist/Research Scientist, New York State Department of Health

“When I started my position, I was tasked with developing a better way to track performance data across multiple programs. With this course, I was able to transform the old system into a dashboard that is efficient, makes good use of a single page, and looks great. We now get lots of compliments on our dashboard, thanks to this course.” – Shawna Rohrman, Associate Director, Cuyahoga County Office of Early Childhood

Case Studies from Past Participants

You can view participants’ before-after transformations here:

• Creating Reports for Grant Deliverables Using Excel Dashboards by Josephine Engels, Mental Health America of Greater Houston
• Better Storytelling with the Same Data: Upgrade that Board Packet! by Kristen Summers, Saint Luke’s Foundation

Powerful Presentations

How to Design and Deliver Presentations for Maximum Impact

Do you need to give presentations, either in-person or online? You might need to design slides for public health conferences. Or, you might need to give updates at your staff meetings.

In this class, you’ll learn how to avoid Death by PowerPoint–those slides with Text Walls, grainy images, and run-on content. Our audiences are busier than ever, and they’re relying on us to communicate our data clearly and concisely.

You’ll gain presentation best practices and practical how-to’s in PowerPoint.

First, in the Slidedecks vs. Slidedocs module, you’ll learn the five graphic design features that make presentations stand out from reports. You’ll see examples of slidedecks and slidedocs from real CDC projects, and we’ll pause to make sure you know whether you need slidedecks and/or slidedocs for your own projects.

Second, in the Message module, you’ll design a Visual Framework to help organize your presentation into manageable chunks of information. You’ll also write the takeaway tweets for your presentation in advance to make sure it’s concise and actionable.

Third, in the Design module, you’ll swap out your bullet points and bar charts for a variety of visuals. You’ll receive our Chart Chooser and our checklist of 15 Ideas for Visuals, and we’ll practice adding visuals to some of your real slides.

Fourth, in the Delivery module, you’ll learn how to storyboard you slides, which is a technique for breaking up dense data over multiple slides and explaining it piecemeal to our non-technical audiences. You’ll also learn about public speaking skills, body language, and tech set-up for virtual presentations.

Learning Objectives

After the one-day workshop, participants will be able to:

• name five characteristics that should differentiate slidedocs (handouts made in PowerPoint) from slidedecks (presentation slides made in PowerPoint);
• narrow down a presentation’s content to just 3-5 “buckets” of information;
• draft a Visual Framework (a diagram) that shows how those 3-5 buckets are related (e.g., a venn diagram, step-by-step process, or repeating cycle);
• write a 1-2 sentence “takeaway tweet” that summarizes the main message from the presentation;
• re-design one text-heavy slide so that it includes accessible, skimmable visuals; and
• storyboard one graph (break up the graph over multiple slides to match your speaking points and keep the audience engaged).

Target Audience

Researchers, evaluators, and scientists who are preparing their own slides/handouts for upcoming presentations.

Or, graphic designers/communications staff and admin staff who are preparing slides/handouts that their supervisors will be presenting.

Level

Intermediate/advanced.

This class is designed for staff who are already giving presentations (informal staff meetings, or formal conference presentations) and want to take their slides and public speaking skills to the next level.

In other words, you’ll gain the most from this session if you can bring your own draft slides to work on. It’ll be harder to participate if you don’t have any slides or upcoming presentations to work on during the hands-on portions.

Suggested Prerequisites

This course is about presentations, slide design, and public speaking skills. It’s not a data visualization course.

We suggest that you complete a half-day or full-day data visualization class first (like Great Graphs). Then, those well-designed graphs and maps can go into the presentations you’ll design in this course.

Equipment Needed

A desktop/laptop computer (not a tablet or phone).

PCs preferred over Macs.

Webcams suggested for virtual classes so that staff can fully participate.

Software Programs Used

You’ll learn both presentation best practices and PowerPoint how-to’s.

Materials Included

• 1 day of live instruction (e.g., 9-4 on-site, or 9-12 two days in a row virtually)
• Access to recordings for 1 year so you can re-watch anything you’d like
• Ebook
• PDF’d slides

What Participants Are Saying

“Not only have my presentation skills and setup improved, but so have my slides. There are so many great tips and tricks I could highlight, but I will keep it to my three favorites: color coding, increasing readability, and storyboarding. The best part is, they don’t take that much extra time! These are simple changes that take your slidedecks to a new level and allow you to really impress your audience.” – Kelsey Waterson, Evaluator, Centerstone Research Institute

“A client asked me to report the results at their meeting and I used so many of your suggestions in the slidedeck, it was the most impressive PowerPoint I have ever made. But as the meeting progressed, they were running out of time, [but] luckily, I had also created a slidedoc and was able to share that document. I have never been so grateful that I had signed up for your class!” – Kristin Wright

Case Studies from Past Participants

You can view participants’ before-after transformations here:

• A Tip, a Trick, and a Thing to Try in Your Next Presentation by Elizabeth Dove, University of Montana
• Creating a Powerful Presentation: 3 Easy Changes to Revamp Your PowerPoint by Kelsey Watterson, Centerstone Research Institute

Learn More

If you’d like to explore private training options, you can learn more here.

Smaller teams may prefer group rates for online courses.

Just like all your graphs, maps, and diagrams, your icons deserve some TLC, too.

Icons can get cartoonish or steal the show if they’re not formatted well.

What’s Inside

• 0:00 Intro
• 0:31 This Case Study
• 1:47 Smaller Icons
• 2:14 Colored or Gray Icons
• 2:37 Review of the 4 Options
• 3:10 How to Insert New Icons
• 3:33 The Icon Menu in Word
• 4:21 Editing the Default Icons
• 5:26 Special Guest

Transcript

Ann K. Emery: [00:00:00] Your icons might be too big or too dark. In this video, I’m going to show you a few variations side by side so you can sit back and compare. And at the end, stick around if you’d like a how to tutorial, because I’m going to show you how to get started with icons that are built right inside of good old Excel and PowerPoint and Word.

I’m Ann Emery. You’re watching Dataviz On The Go, the series where I make quick tutorials for you as I’m racing around between my conferences and consulting and podcasts and blog posts and workshops. And speaking of workshops, I was just giving a half day virtual workshop. And one of the case studies that we looked at from that group looked something like this.

This obviously isn’t their real report, but the report was structured more or less like this. They had the report title right here at the top. They had a couple introductory paragraphs. And then they had looked through their whole full report and pulled out five key highlights. I love using icons like this for highlights.

I [00:01:00] just wanted to fine tune these a little bit and show them a few variations, which I’m going to show to you in a moment. Okay, these obviously aren’t their real icons, but the icons were this size. One by one inch, and this color, filled in black icons. And then below there, they had all the rest of the stuff.

And on the following pages, pages two, three, four, and so on, they had lots of graphs and maps and diagrams and all sorts of other visuals. I worried that these icons were stealing the show. I wanted them to be the main character, but not like the in your face main character. So, hence the variations. Let me zoom out and show you a couple ideas side by side, okay?

The first thing that we played around with was what if we made the icons just a little bit smaller? We go from one by one inch to half inch, so they’re still the main [00:02:00] character, just not so in your face. Okay, look at just the difference in ink, right? Now you can see all the words, you can see the little boxes underneath them a little bit better.

Let me show you a couple more options. What if instead of default black icons, we try either a brand color or gray. You would use your real brand color. I’m using the Depict Data Studio purple right here. So this would look a little bit different, of course, or a light gray.

One by one inch, solid colored black, smaller black, or my personal favorites, brand color or gray. If you ever try icons and your boss is like, I don’t like them. Get them out of there. Remove them. It’s probably because they’re too big and too dark. Nobody likes icons that are [00:03:00] too big and too dark. They almost look cartoonishly big.

So try making them smaller, try making them a brand color, or try making them lighter. In case you’re new to icons, let me give you a quick, quick 101 level tutorial. They’re here. They’re under insert, and then there’s the icons button. You have to be on the latest version of Word to see these though. So if you don’t see the icons button, you’re going to have to go update your Word to get these built in icons.

Insert icons. You click on that. You get the menu. You go through. You enjoy all the nice icons, right? There are filled versions. There are outlined versions. You’re going to pick one or the other. I picked filled. In this case, you want consistency. I wouldn’t do filled outline, filled outline. That would be weird.

There’s also a search bar in case you need it. In real life, I almost never use any of these icons. I usually use these symbols in a lot of my graphs to talk about like, [00:04:00] you know, we met the target, we met the objective, or this thing increased, this thing decreased, or I’ll do numbered lists with these fancy icons.

The numbers with the circle around them. Okay. Insert icons, pick your icon. Let’s pick the barn. Why not? Let’s go with the barn for today. I’m feeling in a barn mood. By default, look, it gives you the size that it gives you. It gives you one by one inch icons and it gives you black. You can edit this. When you first insert the icon, it pulls up the editing features.

You don’t have to do anything special, but in case you’re clicked off, you know, you’re editing this later. All you have to do is. Click on your icon. It’s going to pull up this graphics format tab for you. And in there, you can adjust the fill. You could make it a brand color. These are my theme colors already added into this file, or you could make it a nice gray.

You can also [00:05:00] adjust the size instead of one inch by one inch, maybe do a half inch. That’s typically the size that I pick for Word. Typically for PowerPoint, because PowerPoint is going to be a bigger screen, one inch is typically okay on PowerPoint. I just want you to know you have control over this. You have control over the color and the size.

So you can make intentional design choices and not just stick with whatever Excel gives you or Word gives you by default. Don’t forget to like, subscribe, and share! Hi baby, what do you see?

Maybe the numbers simply went up over time. Or down.

Other times, it’s more complicated.

Here’s how to explain multiple takeaway messages in presentations: with multiple slides, one per takeaway message.

Before: Everything Smushed on One Slide

Here’s what I typically see: lots of possible takeaway messages shoved into a single graph on a single slide.

The presenter says something like this:

“Next, let’s talk about gonorrhea diagnoses in our state. We’re looking at the number of diagnoses per 100,000 people. We’re also looking at age ranges. This is the person’s age when they were diagnosed with gonorrhea. We’ve got five years’ worth of data: from 2018 through 2022. Let’s look at a few key findings. Gonorrhea diagnoses were highest for people in their early twenties. In 2020, for example, there were 735 gonorrhea diagnoses per 100,000 people ages 20-24 in our state. Gonorrhea was lowest for ages 40-49. In 2022, for example, there were 88 diagnoses per 100,000 people ages 40-49 in our state. Here’s another pattern we found: Gonorrhea diagnoses generally went up from 2018 through 2020. For the three younger age groups, at least. And, gonorrhea diagnoses went down from 2021 to 2022 for all age groups.”

And while you’re talking through allllllll those numbers and age ranges and timeframes, the audience only sees this:

You see the problem, right??

The presenter is talking about one thing… but the audience is probably looking at something else.

That’s the very definition of Death by PowerPoint.

After: Describing One Takeaway Message at a Time with Multiple Slides

Instead, let’s use multiple slides!

We’re aiming for a single takeaway message per slide.

That way, what we say = what the audience sees.

There should be a perfect cohesion between sight and sound.

The presentation would look and sound like this:

“Next, let’s talk about gonorrhea diagnoses in our state. We’re looking at the number of diagnoses per 100,000 people.”

“We’re also looking at age ranges. This is the person’s age when they were diagnosed with gonorrhea.”

“We’ve got five years’ worth of data: from 2018 through 2022.”

“Here are the patterns at a glance. Next, let’s look at a few key findings.”

“Gonorrhea diagnoses were highest for people in their early twenties. In 2020, for example, there were 735 gonorrhea diagnoses per 100,000 people ages 20-24 in our state.”

“Gonorrhea was lowest for ages 40-49. In 2022, for example, there were 88 diagnoses per 100,000 people ages 40-49 in our state.”

“Here’s another pattern we found: Gonorrhea diagnoses generally went up from 2018 through 2020. For the three younger age groups, at least.”

“And, gonorrhea diagnoses went down from 2021 to 2022 for all age groups.”

Finally, you’d show the “full” graph again, pausing for questions and a discussion.

The Bottom Line: Use More Slides!!!

We’re not making the presentation longer. We’re speaking for the same amount of time as before.

We’re not rushing or slurring our words. We’re speaking at the same pace as before.

We’re not wasting paper or ink. These are the slides shown on screen during a presentation. If you want to print something, just print the “full” graph (which is slide 462 in the screenshot below).

We’re syncing our words and visuals.

We’re keeping our audience’s attention.

Because if they’re not even paying attention… How will they possibly understand, remember, and use the findings for decision making?!