The 30-3-1 Approach with Unlimited Visual Appendices: The Bare Minimum for Designing Reports that Actually Inform Decisions

Jul 6th, 2021 / Reports
Want to design reports that actually inform decisions? With software you already have?? Nobody wants to pour blood, sweat, and tears into a document that sits on a dusty shelf. I recently gave a presentation where I shared about the 30-3-1 approach to reporting, which is the bare minimum for designing useful reports. And now I want to share it with you.
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3 Common Reporting Hurdles—and How to Overcome Them

Jun 22nd, 2021 / Reports
I work with a lot of different groups — government, universities, foundations, nonprofits, for-profits, etc. Every organization has a little bit different communication style… but they all have one thing in common: everyone has reports of one kind or another. I spoke with Alli Torban on her podcast, Data Viz Today to share 3 common reporting hurdles I see and how to overcome them.
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Designing Visual Appendices for Your Next Report—In Under an Hour

Nov 10th, 2020 / Data Visualization
A couple years ago, I worked on a report that summarized survey responses from both universities and their students. Even with hundreds of survey responses and dozens of survey questions, we kept the report’s body to just six pages! How’d we choose which findings to include in the report’s main body?! That can be a daunting task, but it doesn’t have to be. It’s much easier to pare down our report’s content when we’ve got appendices to back us up. I’ll walk you through what can – and should- be put into appendices and introduce you to the better version… visual appendices.
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Can Your Dataviz Have an Influence on School Reopening Plans?

Jul 28th, 2020 / Data Visualization, Presentations, Reports
Our organizations collect all this data—through surveys, assessments, interviews, and so on—and then what? The default: The data just sits there inside a Dusty Shelf Report. But what if your data could actually inform real-life decisions? I recently sat down with Vivian Jefferson from Loudoun County Public Schools, a growing district in the Washington, D.C. metro area who shared that her graphs had been featured on the news (!!!).
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Could Your Long Report become a City Billboard? Use Data Viz Techniques to Create High-Impact Materials

Feb 5th, 2019 / Data Visualization, Reports
Do you have a long report that took a lot of time and effort, but you’re not really sure how anyone is going to use it? Annual progress reports, data publications, strategic planning documents… many of us spend a lot of time writing these documents, and they’re necessary to capture a lot of detailed information. Here is an example of how I turned a long report into accessible, graphic summaries.
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