It wants its 100-page reports back.

My wish: Limit yourself to just 30 pages (or less!).

It wants its portrait reports back.

Are people printing your doc… or reading it from their (landscape) computer?

It wants its text-heavy reports back.

We need visuals on every single page.

Ready to revamp your technical reports?

10 Tips for Redesigning Reports

Here are 10 quick wins to improve your next text-heavy document.

You don’t need to apply all 10.

Even one of these techniques will make dense reports more readable for our non-technical and busy audiences.

Design a One-Pager 

The 30-3-1 Approach is the bare minimum for designing reports that actually inform decisions. You can read more about 30-3-1 here.

When you’re creating one-pagers, don’t forget to add at least ½ inch of white space between each graph so the page doesn’t feel smushed.

It’s tempting to try and fit everything into a one-pager. A one-pager is just the highlights; the full report can go into more detail.

Use Brand Colors and Fonts 

Never, ever, ever use your software program’s defaults. 

I’m looking at you, Calibri.  

If you’re using Microsoft Office programs, like Excel, Word, or PowerPoint, then Theme Colors and Theme Fonts can save you hours of time.

Start with the “So What?” 

The Key Findings and Next Steps deserve to be shared earlier (not buried in the last few pages of our docs).  

Use Landscape Orientation 

Will you pay to print your reports and mail them to your recipients? 

If not, they’ll probably read in on their (landscape) computer screen.  

Add a Cover 

We can make beautiful, engaging report covers in 20 minutes or less— inside software we already have.  

Here’s one of my favorite before/after transformations from Sara DeLong:

Chunk with Dividers 

Begin each chapter with a dark, visually-striking divider page to help break up the content into small bites.  

Add 1+ Visual Per Page 

Think of a recent report: how many pages had visuals? 

The Text Wall takes too long to read.  

Add a Variety of Visuals 

Not just charts.

Not just tables. 

Humanize reports with photos, too.  

You can grab my Checklist of 15 Types of Visuals from this podcast with Alli Torban.

Go Beyond the Bar Chart 

My old reports: bars, clustered bars, stacked bars and columns charts.  

Zzzzzzzzzzzzz… 

Let’s escape the bar chart.  

Lower the Reading Level 

I suggest writing two levels below (e.g., a Master’s degree audience would get Grade 9-12 writing).  

Your Turn 

Which tip will you apply to your next technical report? Comment anytime and let me know.

Nobody wants to pour blood, sweat, and tears into a document that sits on a dusty shelf.

In May 2021, I co-presented with Elizabeth Grim at the Eastern Evaluation Research Society’s annual conference.

Our session was titled, “How to Design Reports that Actually Inform Decisions with Software We Already Have.”

Attendees learned about:

• The 30-3-1 approach to reporting with unlimited visual appendices
• Adding a 20-minute report cover
• Adding color-coded divider pages
• Aiming for 1+ visual on every single page
• Including a variety of visuals
• Using inclusive, non-violent language

Today, let’s focus on one of those techniques: following the 30-3-1 approach to reporting, which is the bare minimum for designing useful reports.

Watch the 10-Minute Tutorial

I recorded a portion of our presentation for you. Here’s a 10-minute lesson about the 30-3-1 approach.

Hopefully you recognize this technique already; I’ve been speaking about it on panels for a decade. 😊

I’ve raised the bar over the past decade though. I used to simply encourage us to follow 30-3-1. I’ve clarified my advice to add visual appendices, too.

The Old Way: The 100-Page Technical Report

In the video, I show you the old way of writing reports in research and evaluation settings.

The single, 100-page technical report used to be the norm. And in some settings, it still is. (I’m thinking of the government agencies and government contractors that I work with.)

Nobody’s got time to read all 100 pages. I think we’ve known that for a while. 30-3-1 to the rescue!

The 30-3-1 Approach

Don’t want your reports to sit on a dusty shelf?

At a bare minimum, I suggest following the 30-3-1 approach, which includes:

• A 30-page report (30 pages maximum) with unlimited visual appendices
• A separate 3-page PDF
• A separate 1-page PDF

In a perfect world, with more time and a bigger budget, I’d love to see slideshows, dashboards, and infographics for every single project, too.

Reports are a good starting point.

The 30-3-1 approach with unlimited visual appendices is even better.

And adding slideshows, dashboards, and infographics is even better.

This approach is all about tailoring for our audiences. Rather than pouring everything into a single document, we design a 30-pager with one audience in mind, a 3-pager with another audience in mind, and so on.

Paring Down 100 Pages into 30 Pages or Less

This is the hardest step. You’ll need to get input from your boss, your report’s audience, a stakeholder group, etc.

I suggest following Marie Kondo’s advice: Focus on what you’re keeping, not on what you’re letting go of. In the video, I discuss her technique for decluttering our closets: Make a big pile of all your clothes, and then look at each item to decide what sparks joy.

We focus our mental energy on the best pieces that are worth keeping, rather than getting stressed by what we’re discarding.

We can apply the same strategy to paring down reports. Focus on the charts, pages, or chapters that are so valuable that they need to stay within the 30-page report body.

We don’t have to delete the rest of the pages. We simply move them to the back of the report, and they form the appendices.

The 3-Pager and 1-Pager

When we’re done with the 30-page report, we also need a separate 3-page report and a separate 1-page report.

Sometimes we’re tempted to count the executive summary as the 3-pager or 1-pager. That’s not enough!!! I recommend creating separate PDFs altogether.

And of course, we don’t have to follow the 30-3-1 approach exactly. We’re aiming for a full version, a mid-length version, and a short-n-sweet version. Your 3-pager might actually be 5 pages, for example. The spirit of the 30-3-1 approach is still there. I want us to avoid only writing a 100-page technical report. 20-10-2 or 30-5-2 will still help our readers tremendously.

A Case Study from a Public Health Agency

In the video, I mentioned a guest blog post from Sara DeLong about how the Wisconsin Division of Public Health applied this technique.

Her agency developed a 130-page report, a 10-page summary, and a 1-page summary. Then, they also created videos, images, and billboards (!!!) to ensure that the messages got off the dusty shelf and into the community.

Add Unlimited Visual Appendices

In the video, I also discussed adding unlimited visual appendices to the end of our reports.

Here’s the blog post where you can learn about visual appendices and get tips for creating them yourself.

Spoiler alert: I create these tables in Excel; add Data Bars, Color Scales, and Spark Lines; and then save them as PDFs.

Learn More

My co-presenter, Elizabeth Grim, also wrote a conference session recap.

Your Turn

Have you followed 30-3-1? Have you created unlimited visual appendices? Please comment below and link to your public-facing examples or describe your project. I’d love to learn from you.

One thing I’ve learned is that organization has a little bit different communication style.

Some groups are report-heavy. Think lots of paragraphs, portrait, Calibri size 11 turned into a PDF.  

Other groups are dashboard-heavy. They either have lots of static dashboards (short PDF reports) or lots of interactive dashboards and databases.

While other groups are presentation-heavy, kind of. They use PowerPoint, but they’re making standalone documents, not slides for presentations.

One thing these groups all have in common: Everyone has reports of one kind or another. And I often see three common report hurdles over and over again.

The Data Viz Today Podcast with Alli Torban

I recently spoke with Alli Torban on her podcast, Data Viz Today. Alli is an information design consultant who discovered data visualization while on maternity leave. She started the podcast as a way to grow and learn more about the data viz field.

She and I discussed those three common report hurdles we all run into and I gave solutions of how to overcome them.

Watch Our Conversation Here 

Challenge 1: Soaring Beyond the Dusty Shelf Report

The first common challenge I see is going beyond the report.

Most organizations have a report of some kind, but it’s hard to get into the mindset of a report AND a dashboard, slideshow, handout, etc.

In many workplaces, we definitely still need a report as one of our formats (e.g., grant reports that are required to be submitted at the end of a multi-year, multi-million-dollar project).

But our data can inform more decisions if we can offer a report plus other formats.

There’s often a misperception that it’s going to be time-consuming or costly to design a report and some other formats.

But, there’s a cost-effective and time-efficient solution: 30-3-1 with unlimited visual appendices.

The 30-3-1 approach is this: you take your dusty shelf report and you limit the body of the report to just 30 pages, the most important data. The rest of it doesn’t get deleted, you simply push it to back of the report in a visual appendix (which unlimited in terms of page numbers).

Then when you’re done with the 30-page report, you also make a 3-pager and a 1-pager. Each format will reach a different audience and will help your data reach more people and actually inform decisions.

Not sure how to incorporate a visual appendix? You can learn more about how to start using this technique here: https://depictdatastudio.com/designing-visual-appendices-for-your-next-report-in-under-an-hour/

Challenge 2: Packing a Lot of Dense, Technical Information into a Report – Without Overwhelming Our Readers 

Another common challenge we all run into is needing to pack a lot of dense, technical information into a report—without overwhelming our readers.

I worked with a county to help create their 100+ page public health report card.

There was one page for each variable: traffic accidents, cancer deaths, pregnancy rates, environmental/ozone data, etc. Our challenge was to find a way to chunk all that data into a few categories that would make easier to read and navigate.

Our solution: Color-coding by chapter.

After categorizing the data, each chapter was designated its own different brand color.

The headings and visuals all used that brand color throughout the chapter (heading 1s, heading 2s, call-out boxes, sidebars, graphs, maps, bullet points, etc.).

The end result allowed readers to easily tell when a new topic began.

Your brain recognizes new color; the content must have changed as well.  

Here’s another example of when I worked with a university library to use color-coding to simply their report:  https://depictdatastudio.com/how-to-transform-a-text-heavy-report/ 

This technique can also be applied to slideshows, dashboards and infographics.

I use this technique when I give presentations as well:  https://depictdatastudio.com/visually-structure-your-presentation-around-key-points/

Challenge 3: Incorporating a Variety of Visuals—Not Just Graphs 

The final challenge I see are reports that are ALL narrative, or ALL graphs, or ALL photos.

We all tend to gravitate towards what we’re comfortable with but there are so many great types of visuals you can include.

In the video, you’ll hear Alli and I talk through this list of 15 visuals to include in our reports:

1. Graphs 

2. Photographs 

3. Icons 

4. Lists 

5. Maps 

6. Diagrams 

7. Timelines 

8. Logos 

9. Screenshots 

10. Text overlaid on images 

11. Columns 

12. Shapes 

13. Handwriting 

14. Cartoons 

15. GIFs 

Your Turn 

I’d love to hear from you. What challenge have you dealt with (or are currently dealing with)? Which of these techniques have you use in your work? Comment and let me know.  

Connect with Alli 

Website: www.allitorban.com 

LinkedIn: @allisontorban

Data Viz Today Podcast: https://dataviztoday.com/ 

This report 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.

We don’t have to worry about forgetting any important details, since readers can simply flip to the back to learn more.

We get to be transparent by showing all the data (in the appendices) without overwhelming our busy readers (by trying to shove everything into the body of the report).

This particular report was six pages long plus 33 pages of appendices!

What Can—and Should—Be Included in Appendices

Here’s everything that can be removed from the report’s main body and pushed to the appendix:

• Question-by-question survey responses (i.e., tables and tables of closed-ended and open-ended survey data)
• Data collection instruments (e.g., an empty copy of the questions from the survey)
• Transcripts from qualitative data collection (like focus groups or interviews)
• Meeting minutes or other official documents we might’ve referenced quickly within the body of the report
• Anything that would put our non-technical audiences to sleep
• Anything that’s not central to the key takeaway message from the report
• Anything we feel like we should include just in case
• Anything that one person who asks lots of questions might need to know about
• Patterns over time (e.g., our report’s main body could focus on this year’s data, but we might include tables that compare this year’s data to last year’s data in the appendix)

What Appendices Typically Look Like

Here’s what tables in the back of reports typically look like: Tiny font sizes, cluttered tables, and no visuals to help readers spot the key patterns.

But what if I told you our appendices could get even better than that—in under an hour??

Introducing… Visual Appendices!

Here’s my wish for your next report: Visual appendices!

5 Easy Edits to Appendices

Let’s start with those original appendices that I showed you a moment ago…

First, declutter the existing tables. Remove all the unnecessary borders and lines.

Oops! Too bare. Don’t worry, we’ll continue editing in the next step.

Second, I re-add the horizontal lines in gray rather than in black. Light gray horizontal lines ensure that our viewers can still read across the rows without distracting from the data by adding lots of dark ink.

Third, add visuals! This is the most fun part.

Fourth, apply a text hierarchy. A text hierarchy means our title is going to be the largest, boldest, darkest text on the page (followed by Heading 1s, 2s, and 3s).  

Fifth, add some plain-language text. In this fictional example, I’ve added a short introductory section. I’ve also changed the n=456 jargon into a friendly sentence: “We collected data from 456 respondents.”

3 Quick Visuals to Include in Appendices

There are plenty of quick visuals that we can include in our appendices. Here are a few of my favorite styles.

Bar Charts (or Stacked Bar Charts)

I showed you this approach already. We can build bar charts or stacked bars to visualize how many (“frequencies”).

Heat Tables (or Any Type of Color-Coded Cells)

I love creating heat tables to help readers spot the highs and lows in the dataset. Heat tables are more helpful than bar charts when our tables have several rows and columns (like these fictional tables below, which have seven columns each).

Trend Lines (or Vertical Columns)

Finally, I love creating trend lines (or, vertical columns) to show patterns over time. In this fictional example, we’re comparing how the patterns shifted between the 2012-13 academic year and the 2017-18 academic year.

The next time you’re adding appendices to your report, add visual appendices!

Bonus: Learn How to Make Visual Appendices

You’ll learn how to make these inside the Dashboard Design course.

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.   

Vivian and I are both members of the same Facebook group (a community for everyone taking data visualization training with me).  

A couple weeks ago, Vivian mentioned that her graphs had been featured on the news (!!!).  

The topic was school reopening plans for the 2020-2021 academic year. Vivian and her colleagues had collected surveys from parents and teachers to gauge their opinions.  

Watch the Conversation Below 

Vivian and I talked about the 52,000 surveys that her office designed, administered, cleaned, and visualized within a two-week timeframe.  

She’ll teach you how they visualized the data, making sure to have detailed reports for technical audiences and a storytelling slideshow for a school board meeting with hundreds of attendees.  

And, she’ll tell you how her graphs ended up being featured inside a news story for an even broader audience. 

About Vivian Jefferson 

Vivian works in the research office of Loudoun County Public Schools in Virginia. The district is one of the largest in the state, with 83,000 students and 94 school facilities (and counting–they open a new school almost every year!). They average about 2,500 new students each year.  

The research office is a four-person team consisting of a program analyst, data analyst, office supervisor, and Vivian, who manages surveys.  

How Vivian’s Role Has Shifted Due to COVID-19 

Vivian noted that the data requests have been more urgent and bigger in size as the leadership tries to make decisions quickly. Loudoun County Public Schools closed in early March but was able to implement some online learning using existing tools.  

“The leadership wanted to monitor how that was going: Are students logging in, are they engaged? What we found was that the tools that we had couldn’t necessarily collect all of that data. We could tell how many students were logging in, but not if that were completing the activities or for how long they were logged in,” said Vivian.  

Vivian and her colleagues have been doing more surveys to try and find where people stand and what their concerns are.   

Vivian also said that the biggest impact she feels has been on what they haven’t been able to do.  

In the spring, they usually conduct assessments to see how students have progressed. They haven’t been able to do that, so they don’t know if the interventions they had in place worked. They also don’t know what the student needs and strengths are going into the next school year.  

“We won’t have the whole last quarter of data to be able to compare with previous years. Anytime we see trend data for 2020, it’s going to have an asterisk that it’s showing only three-quarters of the data. And I think that’s probably happening all over with school districts across the country,” Vivian said.  

Designing the School Reopening Surveys 

Let’s dive into the survey that was featured on the news. 

School leaders requested a “survey of families and staff to see where their comfort level is with these three models that we’ve developed, what they’re concerned about and their needs are.” The school system was considering three models: 100% in-person, 100% virtual, or a hybrid. 

Vivian’s office designed and administered two surveys: one for parents and one for all school-based staff, such as administrators, office staff, and other professionals in addition to teachers. 

They reviewed similar surveys from other school districts, and then added questions specific to their own county. 

Parents were asked about their spring 2020 online learning experience; which of the three reopening models they preferred; whether they had computer access for distance learning; and more. 

Staff were asked whether they received the support and resources they needed in spring 2020; whether they would be comfortable being inside a classroom with physical distancing measures in place; and whether they were comfortable taking their temperatures and wearing face coverings. 

Then, the surveys were translated into Spanish, and links were emailed to parents and staff, and further promoted on social media.  

Collecting the Survey Responses 

Vivian said, “We knew we were going to get a lot interest in it because it’s such a hot topic. We do a school climate survey every spring for staff and parents. The parent survey usually gets 11,000 to 12,000 responses. This survey had 46,000 parents respond. And then about 6,000 staff responded (usually only a couple thousand respond). It was huge.”  

Vivian’s office designed the surveys, collected 52,000 responses, and compiled the data into reports and a slideshow within just two weeks. 

Visualizing the Data 

Vivian color-coded the data to make the categories easier to navigate. For example, they consistently used teal for elementary schools, orange for middle schools, gold for high schools, and blue for the county. 

Vivian also drew attention to key findings by making pieces of the visuals darker or lighter: 

Vivian also said that, “On the titles of the slides, I tried to pull out what the main finding was, to highlight what they should be looking for.” 

The Reporting Model 

I personally love the reporting model that Vivian’s office followed. 

They developed two detailed reports plus a slideshow with key findings. And, the news story provided a high-level overview. There’s something available for every type of audience. 

Vivian and her colleagues have evolved their communications strategy. “When I first started there 14 years ago, we were doing the full Dusty Shelf Reports.  Over the past few years, we’ve realized that our decision makers need data to make policy and decisions within a few weeks. They don’t have time to wait for a year long, in-depth program evaluation. We’ve been kind of gearing up for a fast response model of reporting anyway, but this was really fast.” 

Two 13-Page Technical Reports 

Vivian’s office shared detailed results within two 13-page reports, one for the parent survey and one for the staff survey. 

These reports contained tables of both quantitative and qualitative survey results. 

The Slideshow 

Vivian and her colleagues also developed a slideshow, which would be presented at a school board meeting. The slideshow was viewed by school board members, administrators, staff, and parents. 

The News Story 

Finally, the news article and 90-second video provided a high-level overview of the survey results. 

Vivian said she was very surprised to see that someone on a Facebook group she’s a member of linked to the new story and said, “LCPS was on the news today!”  

“I thought, ‘I wonder what they said?’ And I clicked on it, and watched it, and I almost fell out of my chair, literally. They had used the graphs from my presentation!” she said.  

The news station used several of Vivian’s graphs, even enhancing one by circling one set of columns that they wanted to draw attention to.  

The news story combined the survey’s quantitative data with audio clips from the public comment portion of the school meeting: 

“I knew that people would be looking at the report, but I thought mainly like the school board, people who tuned in to watch the school board meeting,” Vivian mentioned. “But I didn’t realize that people would take anything from it and use it in a different way.” 

Reactions from the School Board and Parents 

And, a couple days after the school board meeting, Vivian was out shopping in a store and overheard a couple parents discussing statistics from the report. 

The school board also gave Vivian’s office good feedback on the data. 

Loudoun County Public Schools had considered three models for the 2020-2021 academic year: 

1. 100% in-person 

2. 100% virtual 

3. A hybrid model 

The school system opted for the hybrid model, in which half the students would be in school at a time. Parents will also have the option to opt-out and follow 100% virtual learning.  

Note: Vivian reached out to let us know that “as typical of the times we are in, this week the school board and superintendent changed the reopening plan to be all distance learning at first, with a phased approach to the hybrid model. You can see their revised plan here: Revised Plan for 2020-21.  

Learn More about Vivian’s Survey 

The survey results were shared publicly on the school board’s site.  

• The slides that were presented at the school board meeting in June 2020.
• The tables from the parent survey.
• The tables from the staff survey.

Read the WUSA 9 story, Loudoun County School Board votes on reopening plan, and watch the 1.5-minute video where Vivian’s work was featured.

Connect with Vivian Jefferson on LinkedIn.

Your Turn 

Comment below. Let us know which part of the conversation resonated with you the most.  

The first of two data visualization workshops with @AnnKEmery is underway! #GRADprofdev #GradsDo pic.twitter.com/Dw15UFiFDh

— GradSchoolatUSC (@GradSchoolatUSC) April 5, 2019

Thanks to Heather Brandt and Chelsea Richard for making this learning opportunity possible!

My Rocky Transition from University to Non-University Settings

In the weeks leading up to the workshops, I spent a lot of time reflecting on my own time working in a university.

My transition from a university research lab to a non-university consulting job was rocky, to say the least!

Long ago, I had majored in psychology so I could take as many research methods and statistics courses as possible. And learning how we learn–the courses on cognition, memory, perception, and brain biology–are critical in my everyday work as a data visualization designer and speaker. I literally use those concepts every single day to design reports, slideshows, and infographics that translate dense, jargony data into materials that others can understand and learn from.

I had initially planned to become a psychology professor. Because what else would I do? 18-year-olds have a slim understanding of all the career paths available–or the brand new career paths that they can blaze for themselves, as I’ve been doing.

After graduation, I did what all my psychology major friends did: I worked in a university research lab for $10/hour and no benefits.

Well, I actually worked in four different labs, adding up to 60 hours/week, not for fun, but to make ends meet.

I worked on a longitudinal study about adolescent development (scheduling participants to come in for data collection interviews, entering data, transcribing interviews, and playing on SAS). I worked for a law school professor doing policy research (calling residents to see whether they would vote to ban smoking in apartment buildings). I worked for a local government commission (evaluating a community-wide system of children and family agencies and designing graphs for a community report card). I worked on a home visiting evaluation (driving throughout rural Virginia and interviewing parents and children during home visits).

These were the dream jobs that would look great on my resume and boost my chances of getting into a Ph.D. program.

However, less than a year later, I needed to go to the doctor. And I desperately needed to see a dentist. I left those research labs and found a consulting job with health insurance.

And so began the long, hard mental transformation from a university to a non-university researcher.

Communicating Data in University Settings: APA Format

I knew exactly how to write research papers for university settings: Times New Roman, size 12, double-spaced, with 1-inch margins and APA format. The goal was clear: Do amazing research and try to get some of those papers published in peer-reviewed journals.

Sometimes I helped graduate students and professors with conference presentations or posters. The formatting seemed pretty straightforward. For posters, it seemed like all you were supposed to do was copy and paste your APA format paper onto poster paper and then get it printed. I didn’t know how conference attendees were supposed to read the 12-point font from a few feet away. But I also knew not to ask. My, how times have changed!

Communicating Data in Non-University Settings: Whatever Format Is Needed to Get the Message Across

Business writing was a different world. We wrote single-spaced reports! And sometimes used 1.5-inch margins! Or 0.5-inch margins! Or landscape layout instead of portrait!

We provided reports whenever our recipients needed data, not just at the end of a project. Sometimes weekly, sometimes monthly. Sometimes at the very beginning of a project. Often all throughout the middle of a project.

We went well beyond reports. We talked with stakeholders over the phone, in conference rooms, through webcams, and over lunch. We gave formal presentations. We worked on press releases. We created separate one-pagers and three-pagers and five-pagers. We made dashboards and infographics. We never followed the Abstract-Introduction-LitReview-Methods-Results-Discussion order.

I was in disbelief most of the time. “We allowed to present data like this??” I would ask my (very patient) coworkers all the time. “We’ll present data however it makes the most sense for our stakeholders and project,” they would answer. What. It took me a while to get it. In the back of my mind, I thought the APA Police would come knocking on our doors.

Transitioning from University to Non-University Settings: What I Wish I Knew Sooner

As I was prepping for the dataviz sessions at the University of South Carolina, I decided to focus on the communications strategies I wish I knew sooner.

Turns out–that’s everything that I do for a living.

That may not surprise most of you. Duh, Ann. That’s what you do. You teach us how to communicate our technical information for non-technical audiences. I didn’t realize that so much of what I do has stemmed from those early, frustrating years.

I wanted to cover everything with this group of faculty members and graduate students.

I narrowed it down to top 10 communications strategies I wish I knew sooner.

Follow the 30-3-1 Approach to Reporting

At the very least, I advised the faculty members and graduate students to follow the 30-3-1 approach to reporting.

It goes like this: You limit your report to just 30 pages (with unlimited appendices). This is easy for those of you who primarily communicate with slideshows or dashboards. But for those of you who primarily communicate with hundred-page APA-format papers, this is a really hard transition.

Then, you write a separate 3-page summary and a separate 1-page summary.

Then, you keep going! You create dashboards, infographics, slideshows, or even bus campaigns and highway billboards.

Understand Your Audience’s Needs Before Analyzing Your Data

We talked about how business settings are audience-focused. You have an opportunity to be of service to others and think about the data that others would find most valuable in their data-informed decision making processes.

I wish I knew about the difference between a traditional graph and a storytelling graph sooner.

Go Beyond the Bar Chart

We talked about how pie charts and bar charts aren’t inherently evil. They’re just overused. And there’s so much more available to you, especially if you’re willing to hijack your software program’s default settings.

For example, I encouraged the faculty and students to try 2-slice waffles instead of million-slice pies.

We also discussed the pros and cons of regular geographic maps vs. square tile grid maps vs. hex maps vs. cartograms.

Hey check out this data viz! One of the examples @AnnKEmery shared with us! 👍 https://t.co/SraqIWOK0m

— Heather Brandt (@BlondeScientist) April 11, 2019

Use Software You Already Have

Purchasing new software won’t solve your dataviz problems.

Effective data communication is more about planning and strategizing than about googling which buttons to click.

Here are some one-pagers I made entirely inside good ol’ Excel:

Declutter All Graphics

I wish I knew that deleting half the software’s unnecessary ink is the easiest way to improve a graph.

Here’s a decluttering makeover:

Brand Your Visualizations with Custom Colors and Fonts

First, find your existing brand guidelines. The University of South Carolina has a robust brand toolbox with color guidelines, font guidelines, and presentation templates that all faculty and students can use. (And should use for every presentation to remove guesswork and increase professionalism, in my opinion.)

Second, enter your color codes into Excel or Tableau.

What an easy Five Minute Fix!

Improve Your Visualization’s Accessibility

Okay, this one deserves its own blog post or book because there are so many ways to improve your visualization’s accessibility.

Accessibility is a core feature of my work. It’s woven into each and every strategy that I teach.

During the workshop for faculty and students, we focused on three techniques.

Avoid Red-Green Color Combos

Avoid red-green color combos, and then test your drafts at https://www.color-blindness.com/coblis-color-blindness-simulator/.

Avoid Colored Text on a Colored Background

Avoid colored text against a colored background, and then test your drafts for color contrast at https://webaim.org/resources/contrastchecker/.

Avoid Using Separate Legends

Avoid using separate legends/keys. Instead, directly label your data.

Apply those Branded, Accessible Colors Strategically

If you have a binary variable, then use a binary color scheme.

If you have a sequential or ordinary variable, then use a sequential color scheme.

If you have a diverging variable, then use a diverging color scheme.

If you have a categorical variable, then use a categorical color scheme.

If you want to tell a story, then use a dark/light contrast.

Measure the Reading Grade Level of Your Writing

When I worked in university research labs, terms like standard deviation and confidence interval and p-value and beta weights were part of everyday conversation.

When I teach dataviz workshops for communications, public relations, and graphic design teams, we talk about the difference between a percentage increase vs. a percentage point increase vs. a percentile. These differences are obvious to those of us who make those calculations daily. But these differences sound like gobbledygook to everyone else who has devoted their carer to a specialty other than research methods or statistics.

I was actually really surprised to learn that most people outside of university research labs don’t use these words in regular conversations. I had been living in a bubble for a few years. It took me a few more years to find accurate synonyms for research methods and statistics terms. It took me a few more years to admit that those terms counted as jargon.

Here’s an article with more info on measuring (and the lowering) the reading grade level of your writing.

Increase the Inclusivity of Your Writing

Firemen –> firefighters.

Stay-at-home moms –> stay-at-home parents.

And so on.

(Yet another technique that really deserves its own blog post. I’m adding this one to the to-do list.)

Most of these techniques apply to all settings, not just non-university settings.

For example, you can definitely follow your organization’s font and color brand guidelines now, not just later on if you decide to work outside of academia.

And you should always strive to make your visuals as accessible as possible.

Your Transition from University to Non-University Settings

Before the workshops, I also asked you for tips on social media:

I especially wanted to hear from those of you who had a rocky transition like I did.

It turns out that a lot of us learned the hard way!

Here are some of my favorite responses.

Translating Academinutiae into a Summary Summary

Thanks, Kirk Knestis, for our favorite new vocabulary word!

During the workshop for faculty and students at the University of South Carolina, we practiced transforming their peer-reviewed journal articles into one-pagers.

The attendees had less than an hour to:

1. read a peer-reviewed journal article that one of their colleagues had written;
2. come to consensus about the article’s key takeaway findings; and
3. draft a one-pager to showcase those key takeaway findings.

Whoa! No small feat in less than an hour.

Coming to consensus about the article’s key takeaway findings probably took the most time. What really mattered in each article? What was so important that it deserved to go into a one-pager?

(Photo credit for all photos: @GradLifeatUSC on Twitter.)

A Template for Your One-Pagers

I gave the faculty and students a rough template to follow.

I advised them to choose 3-5 key points.

Then, illustrate each key point with a visual (a chart, map, diagram, etc.) to back up their claims.

Then, arrange the visuals on the page, perhaps with a simple 2×2 grid layout.

Write storytelling subtitles for each of the visuals.

Color-code by category (e.g., the heading and the graph in the upper left corner are both green, so you instantly know that this takeaway finding is different from the fuchsia heading and the fuchsia graph in the upper right corner).

Don’t forget to add contact information and a url to the bottom.

Check Out these One-Pagers!

The faculty and students had less than an hour. Here are some of their drafts. Tremendous progress for such a short amount of time! Well done.

(Photo credit for all photos: @GradLifeatUSC on Twitter.)

Many thanks to everyone who contributed their own advice to smooth the transition from university to non-university settings for these faculty members and graduate students!

If you’ve got additional advice to share, please comment below.