I got the opportunity to work with a public health agency which I was really exited about.

Until I had to present my research to a group of policy makers…

Before: The Dusty Shelf Report

Condensing two full chapters—73 pages of my thesis—into a short report for the policy making group seemed like an impossible task.

That’s when Report Redesign came to the rescue!

As this research was being conducted in an academic setting, I couldn’t entirely do away with all the technical details (or what Ann would call the Dusty Shelf Report 😊).

But I did manage to apply the 30-3-1 principles to summarise the two chapters into:

1. a shorter 23-page report (with appendices) and
2. 11 slides for a 10-minute presentation to the policy making group.

Choosing the Final Outputs: A Short Report and a Slideshow

Working with the public health agency, I realised that although they were expecting the technical details on the study methods and results to be included, the overall format expected was different compared to what I had been used to in academia.

They wanted slides which were to be presented to the policy making group and an accompanying report with more details on the study in case some of the members wanted more detailed information.

I thought this would be a good opportunity to apply some of what I had learnt during the Report Redesign course.

Choosing Which Findings to Include

We had a few meetings with the research group to identify the most important findings to include in the presentation and report.

Given the audience was technical, we agreed to include:

• An overview of the study
• A sentence on what the goals/aims of the study were
• Survey respondent characteristics
• Results section that highlighted responses to main questions in the survey
• Limitations

Just focusing on these areas, I was able to whittle down the two thesis chapters into 23 pages with some additional information in the appendices.

The Shorter Report

In the original version of the write-up, I did have some tables, but they were too technical (too many decimal places; statistical terms like p-values).

I also had some graphs that used the default settings made within my software program without any editing.

For the report, I aimed to have one or more visuals on every single page (a goal covered in Report Redesign).

This included flow charts, graphs, tables, text boxes, and icon arrays. Whatever was needed to best communicate the takeaway finding from the research.

The agency was going to use their own design team for the final branding and layout, so I didn’t have to bother with that.  

The Presentation Slides

I further had to whittle down the report into 11 slides for the presentation.

I decided to limit the background information and focus on the key results.

Visualizing data in charts, graphs, dashboards, and infographics is one of the most powerful strategies for getting your numbers out of your spreadsheets and into real-world conversations.

But it can be overwhelming to get started with data visualization. Does data visualization leave you feeling like the numbers are about to topple over on you??

If so, this step-by-step data visualization guide is for you!

I’ll walk you through the data visualization design process so you know what to do first, second, and third as you transform your spreadsheets into data stories.

Step 1: Understand Your Audience

Wait! Don’t start making graphs on your computer! First, we have to do some planning. A little bit of up-front planning will save you hours of blood, sweat, and tears in the long run.

First, we need to consider our audience and context. Who, exactly, is going to be using the data to make decisions?

Here are some discussion-starter questions to talk about with your colleagues.

Who is Your Audience?

A chart designed for a group of foundation program officers will not be appropriate for a group of high school principals, and vice versa.

List all your audience types on a piece of paper, or a whiteboard, or in a spreadsheet, or even on the back of a napkin. Share the list with your colleagues and make sure you’re on the same page.

Have you reached consensus about who you’re targeting with your data?

What’s Your Audience’s Numeracy Level?

Do they enjoy or fear data? Unless you’re designing charts for a group of economists or statisticians, you can usually leave out details like the effect size, power analysis, and margin of error. Laypeople are often more interested in practical significance (the “so what?” and implications of findings) than in statistical significance.

What’s Your Audience’s Data Visualization Familiarity Level?

If they’re brand new to dataviz, stick with the traditional charts like pie charts, bar charts, and line charts—otherwise they’ll spend more timing ooh-ing and aah-ing over the chart’s novelty than paying attention to the information contained in the chart.

How Much Time Does Your Audience Have?

Little time or interest: Simple static chart.

Lots of time and interest: Interactive charts.

What Types of Decisions Does Your Audience Make?

What information do they need? What information do they already have? What information are they expecting? How will your chart(s) add value for them?

If you can’t think of how your chart will add value for the readers, don’t make one. Every chart needs a purpose and so what?

How Much Precision is Necessary?

As the data visualization designer, you have the freedom (and responsibility) to select how much precision is necessary. Your selection should be well thought-out and intentional. Your decision plays out in two ways: the chart type you select, and how you label the data points.

When selecting chart types, remember that some charts are better than others in displaying precision. For example, charts that rely on angles and area to show differences, like pie charts, are for communicating general patterns. Charts that rely on length to show differences, like bar charts, are for communicating specific details.

How Many Decimal Places Are Necessary?

A related decision is how exact your data labels will be. Will you include decimal places? How many?

In most scenarios, you can safely round your decimal places to the nearest whole number. Your audience is rarely using the tenths, hundredths, or thousandths place to make decisions.

Are My Viewers Expecting a Story?

Think about whether your audience is expecting a traditional or storytelling graph.

You’ll learn about the distinctions in this video:

Step 2: Choose the Right Chart

It takes a while to understand all the different chart types and to pick the best one for your desired takeaway message. There are tons of great graphs to choose from!

Consult a Chart Chooser

My interactive Chart Chooser includes dozens of chart types, resources, tutorials, and templates.

New to Dataviz? Start with Classic Chart Types

If you’re not sure which chart to use, stick with classics like the bar chart to compare categories and the line chart to visualize how things change over time.

These charts will be “right” most of the time, so they’re a safe bet.

Use Pie Charts Sparingly

Contrary to popular belief, pie charts are not evil and don’t have to be avoided altogether. I have seven guidelines for using pie charts and donuts. In this pie chart makeover, I show you how to transform a 3D pie chart with way too many slices into a storytelling bar chart with icons:

Getting Comfortable with Dataviz? Branch Out and Try Other Chart Types

Once you’ve mastered the classic chart types, you can play around with less-familiar chart types like bubble charts, bullet charts, dot plots, heat maps, scatter plots, slope graphs, social network maps, tree maps, waterfall charts, and more.

Surround Yourself with Positive Inspiration

Surround yourself with great graphs so you can expand your worldview of what’s possible with data visualization. I suggest following top-notch data journalism teams like @PostGraphics, @NYTgraphics, and @WSJgraphics.

You can even create a physical or digital library of great graphs. For example, you might print full-page, full-color charts and tape them near your desk. Surrounding myself with a variety of chart types, all of which have been used in different reports and for different groups of people, helps me create brand new charts easily. All I do is glance up at my gallery, and then I quickly figure out which chart is best for my new situation.

Dive Into Your Dataset with Exploratory Data Visualization Techniques

I also use exploratory computer strategies, like Microsoft Excel’s spark lines, data bars, and conditional formatting, to help me narrow down the focus of my charts.

Spark Lines

Here’s a tutorial that shows you how to get started with spark lines:

Data Bars

And here’s a tutorial that shows you how to get started with data bars:

Conditional Formatting

You can set up rules in your spreadsheet that automatically change the color of certain cells based on their values. I regularly use heat tables to scan my dataset for patterns. You can follow my step-by-step tutorial to make heat tables for your data.

Sketch Rough Drafts on Paper

Step back from your software program. This is especially crucial if you’re using Excel or R (versus Tableau) where you usually need a solid idea of your chart’s design before implementing that design on the computer.

I sketch, draw, and doodle plenty of drafts before I create anything on the computer.

Here’s how it works: First, sketch plenty of rough drafts on paper. Give yourself permission to doodle as many drafts as you need. Share drafts with colleagues early and often. Gather as much feedback as you can. Next, create one or two of those promising drafts on the computer. Finally, edit, edit, edit! Put your easiest-to-follow chart in your final presentation or report. You might sketch five or more drafts. Only the single best chart will survive the editing process.

Step 3: Select a Software Program

Once you’ve got a rough mental idea of what your visualization might look like, sit down and build the first draft of your visualization on the computer.

There are dozens of software programs available for building data visualizations. Some are free. Others are low-cost. And others are quite costly, at least for smaller organizations.

I’m software-agnostic at my core, meaning that I don’t care which program you use. You can create great — or terrible — graphs in any software program.

That being said, 99% of my data visualization consulting is done in Microsoft products: Excel, Word, and PowerPoint. Those are the common denominator for the companies that hire me. I’d never create a dashboard in a specialty software program… if you don’t also have access to it and know how to use it. It would be useless!

Here’s an example of an interactive dashboard made in good ol’ Excel. You can learn how to make these, and many other types, inside my Dashboard Design online course.

Step 4: Declutter

After you’ve got the first draft of your data visualization created on the computer, it’s time to refine your visualization and make your message shine. No computer program is perfect. You’ll have to roll up your sleeves and make intentional edits no matter which software program you’re using. The very first edit I make is to declutter my visualization. Software programs come with way too many borders, lines, and unnecessary ink. Examine each and every speck of ink on the chart. Does it have a specific purpose? If you can’t articulate a reason for that ink, you don’t need it.

Apply the Squint Test

In these before scatter plot on the left, the cluttered appearance distracts us from the data. All these extra lines make the charts look overly scientific—and outdated. In the after version on the right, I removed the background shading and borders. I kept the x and y axes and some of the grid lines, but I intentionally changed the black ink to gray ink.

How do you know when you’re done decluttering? Apply the Squint Test. Here’s how it works: Squint your eyes so that you’re peering at the chart through your eyelashes. Everything should look a little blurry. Can you see the overall shape of the data? For example, you should be able to tell if a line chart is jutting upwards or downwards over time. If not, try removing more clutter.

Outline Shapes in White

You’ve got the gist of decluttering. Now, let’s fine-tune!

Sometimes reducing clutter means outlining shapes in white, rather than black, so that they match the chart’s background color.

Step 5: Clarify Your Message with Color

There are three goals for color:

1. Branding (Using your company’s colors, which saves time and helps you look professional)
2. Accessibility (Making sure your colors pass official guidelines so they’re legible for people with disabilities, like ADA/508 compliance in the United States)
3. accessibility (Using colors to make the graph feel intuitive)

Brand Your Visuals with Custom Colors

I’m begging you! Do not use the default colors from Excel, Tableau, or Google Charts. Nothing screams novice! or 2002! more than default color schemes. If you’re designing charts for a report, handout, or presentation for a client, use their color scheme. Consultants, this means the report will look like it came from the client. It will not have your firm’s look and feel.

In this example, Johanna Morariu and I were designing a slidedoc for the Working Families Success Network. We began by investigating the Working Families Success Network’s logo, website, and publications. Their logo has a distinctive blue, orange, and pink and their publications use dark gray text rather than black. Throughout their website they use color blocks with white text and white outlines. Next, we adapted that layout and color scheme for our slidedoc. The images on the right are separate slides (pages) of the report.

You can locate custom color codes in style guides, with a free eyedropper tool, or even with Microsoft Paint. Then, enter your custom color codes in Microsoft Excel or in Tableau.

Make Sure Your Colors Are Legible for People with Color Vision Deficiencies

Here’s how:

1. First, by proactive and avoid using red-green color combos.
2. Second, make sure you directly label your data.

Although we’re used to seeing legends, we rarely need them. Legends can lead to unnecessary zig-zagging around the screen or page, and legends can also be difficult to interpret if your graph is printed in grayscale.

Instead of using legends, directly label the data. Direct labels mean that you add labels as close as possible to the data. For example, in a line graph, you would delete the separate legend and place the category labels off to the right of each line. For bonus points, color-code the text in the labels to match the line.

This is what direct labels look like:

Then, you can upload your draft to www.color-blindness.com’s Color Vision Deficiency Simulator to get a preview of what it’ll look like for people with protanopia and deuteranopia.

Emphasize the Takeaway Message with the Action Color

When you want to tell a story with data, you can guide your viewer’s attention to your desired takeaway finding by creating a dark/light contrast. This example comes from one of my graduate school projects a decade ago, so I used the exact shade of green from my university’s logo. Then, I used dark green to draw my audience’s attention to a couple key parts of the slide. This slide comes from the fourth section or chapter of the presentation, the Limitations section, so that tab was highlighted in dark green so that it contrasted with the other tabs, which are in gray. The topic of this particular slide was Brevity of open-ended survey responses, so that text is in green so that it stands out against the rest of the text. And the box-and-whisker plot itself also uses dark green.

Step 6: Clarify Your Message with Text

It’s hard to get wording just right, so I usually save my titles, subtitles, and annotations for the end.

Brand Visuals with Custom Fonts

Rather than using Microsoft’s plain ol’ Calibri, make sure your visualization’s fonts match the project’s branding.

Write the Takeaway Finding in the Graph’s Title

Need to tell a story with data? Rather than using a generic title (“Figure 1” or “Number of youth served”), state the takeaway message in the title.

I first learned about this technique through Cole Nussbaumer’s Storytelling with Data workshop back in 2012—but geez, was it tough to apply! This is one of the hardest practices for social scientists to learn because we’re so comfortable with APA formatting and its generic figure titles.

Think Twitter-like and aim for six- to eight-word titles. Look to newspaper articles for inspiration; journalists know how to include the “so what?” in their title. You may or may not read the full newspaper story for additional details. Same thing with charts: your audience may or may not read your full chart, so your title must give them the gist of your findings.

Add Context with Annotations

Annotations are call-out boxes that provide important contextual details. In PowerPoint, Word, or Excel, you can easily create annotations by inserting a text box. No fancy software required!

Here’s a great example from Mother Jones. A generic title would’ve been “Number of children living in poverty” or “Relationship between poverty and geographic location.” This 6-word title, “In Climbing Income Ladder, Location Matters,” ensures that readers grasp the chart’s message instantly. A 2-line caption adds more details underneath the title, and a few cities are annotated. The tweet’s text also reinforces this message.

This is how likely poor kids are to grow up and move out of poverty based on where they live http://t.co/5A5VIZkLBN pic.twitter.com/7BBZQJ9bdg — Mother Jones (@MotherJones) January 31, 2014

Establish a Text Hierarchy

Size your fonts according to their importance. A text hierarchy tells your viewers which information is most important (headings) and which information is least important (the regular ol’ paragraphs). In this example, I transformed a university’s annual report simply by adding an intentional text hierarchy. I call this makeover a two-hour turnaround because these are changes that anyone can make in two hours or less. Before, all the font was the same size, so the headings didn’t stand out. The report looked like a sea of words. After, we made the headings stand out by with larger fonts and by overlaying the text on top of a photograph. We also used a different color for each section to break up the sea of words into manageable chunks.

Lower the Reading Level

The vast majority of reports, handouts, infographics, dashboards, and slideshows that I review with clients are written at a reading grade level that’s so high that reading the documents feels like homework. In this example, we assessed our draft’s reading grade level with a free tool called readable.io. Then, we re-worded the title so that it was a closer match for our intended audience.

Finally, go share your chart!

You’ll need to edit it slightly depending on the medium — a chart for a presentation should look different than a chart for a dashboard. You can learn about presentation-specific, dashboard-specific, and report-specific techniques.

Learn More

Sign up for my free online course called Soar Beyond the Dusty Shelf Report. There are several quick lessons that help you get started with data storytelling.

Or, contact me about online courses, private workshops, and conference keynotes.

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When COVID-19 pushed many events online, I decided to host a virtual Christmas trivia event for my family.

Participants answered questions over four different rounds in teams of three to six people. The rounds each had five questions and all questions were Christmas- or New Year-themed.

Before: Compiling the Data in a Spreadsheet

To support scorekeeping, teams had an individual score sheet where they wrote and marked their own answers.

I had a master score sheet that would automatically pull their scores together so all teams scores were combined into one page.

I’d then show this master score sheet via screen share at half-time and at the end of the event.

The master score sheet looked like this:

While it brought all the scores into one place, it wasn’t very easy for my participants to quickly pull out the key information (i.e., how well their team was doing).

I decided to apply some of the lessons I learned in the Dashboard Design course to make the sheet more accessible.

After: My Trivia Night Dashboard

First, I had to decide what type of dashboard I wanted to make.

In the course, Ann provided a handy Dashboard Cheat Sheet that helped me see different options.

I decided because I had one time point and wanted to compare categories (i.e., teams) that bars would likely be best.

I also decided to convert the numerical scores into percentages because not all rounds had the same number of possible points. Percentages would be a more consistent indicator.

Now it was time to make the dashboard.

It was easy to follow along step by step with Ann’s stacked bar dashboard video tutorial.

I made the following dashboard using the Data Bars feature in Microsoft Excel:

What I Learned about Dashboards and Excel

Not only were the steps easy to follow, but I also learned about better dashboard and Excel practices.

These tips help make your life easier and your dashboards more editable and readable.

Some of my lessons learned include:

• Always put a title, subtitle, and date on the dashboards.
• If your text is in a colour, make it bold so it is easier to read.
• Add a white border around cells to add white space.
• Use cell styles and Theme Colours to make formatting more consistent and easier to edit (I somehow did not know about this in Excel even though I use it regularly in Word).
• Give yourself a bit of time to do the final editing to make it sure fits on a page

With this dashboard, I found it much easier to see:

• How well teams did in each round (e.g., team 6 struggled with Round 4, but excelled in Round 3).
• How teams compared to each other.
• How hard each round was (e.g., Round 2 was on average harder than Round 3).

Designing a Second Dashboard

Encouraged by my dashboard attempts, I decided to try one more dashboard.

I wanted to know within each round, which questions did teams get right and wrong.

This would help me identify which questions were too easy and which were too hard. It’s a fine balance to get when hosting trivia!

I thought about including it in the same dashboard above, but I then I watched one of Ann’s videos about the four types of dashboards.

This reminded me that it’s okay (and even better) to make different dashboards for different audiences.

I had to do a bit of data cleaning first. I ended up with a table that showed for each question in each round the percent of teams that got that question fully correct:

While it had the information that I needed, I found it hard to identify any patterns or the take home message.

I remembered that in the Dashboard Design course Ann had a video on how to compare categories using heatmaps. (Here’s a blog post tutorial you can read.)

I used the steps to create this:

What I Learned from My Second Dashboard

As with the first dashboard, there were some great tricks.

Essentially, if you’re doing something manually (like changing the text colour to white on the darker cells or individually colouring cells) there is almost always a better way! You can use Excel’s conditional formatting to automatically color-code background fills and/or font colors.

I found it much easier to identify patterns both within round and across rounds.

For example, teams generally had a harder time with questions in Round 2 than they did with Round 3 (there are more lighter cells).

Using this dashboard, I could easily pick out questions which were too hard and too easy.

Questions That Were Too Hard

Round 1 – Question 4: What is the name of this dish and where is it eaten on January 6? (Answer: Rosca de Reyes; Mexico)

Round 2 – Question 2: What is the highest grossing Christmas movie (according to Wikipedia)?

Options: a. The Grinch b. Krampus c. The Polar Express d. Elf

(Answer: The Grinch)

Questions That Were Too Easy

Round 4 – Question 2: What fruit is a traditional stocking stuffer?

(Answer: Citrus fruit like an orange, mandarin, clementine)

Round 3 – Question 4: What performance is this song played in? (Bonus: Who is the composer?)

(Answer: The Nutcracker; Tchaikovsky)

(Sound clip source: Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License, via Wikimedia Commons)

I really enjoyed how approachable and practical the videos in this course were.

I can’t wait to continue to apply the tips and techniques I learned both at work and for fun!

Maybe at next year’s trivia I’ll have to test some of the dashboard designs for comparing change over time.

Connect with Emily

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/emilysross/

We’re all familiar with the obvious signs of Death by PowerPoint:

• Text-wall slides with bullet points for daaaays.
• Using filler words (um, like, so).
• Multiple graphs smushed on one slide with tiny text.
• Tiny, grainy images with cheesy stock photography models.

But are you familiar with the subtle signs of Death by PowerPoint?

10 Subtle Signs of Death by PowerPoint

Here are 10 subtle signs that our presentations might need some TLC:

Spending Too Much or Too Little Time Making Slides

Are you making the slides the night before? That’s not enough time.

I’m guilty. I used to make slides on the plane on the way to the conference.

Or, maybe you’re running into the opposite challenge: Are you spending too much time making slides?

Again, I’m guilty. Sometimes I’d waste an entire weekend making slides for a big talk.

If your time management falls on either extreme—you’re spending too little time or too much time making the slides—then that’s a subtle sign of Death by PowerPoint.

Poor time management à poor presentation quality à adverse effects on our audience.

Running Out of Time to Make Handouts

In a perfect world, every presentation would be accompanied by a separate handout, one-pager, or even technical report.

In reality, I used to just share a PDF’d copy of my slides. I wasn’t sure what to include in the handout, how to format it, or whether it was really necessary (it is!!!).

As a result, my slides were in this weird limbo: I’d strive for great-looking presentation slides with lots of images and very little text. But sometimes I’d get nervous and add too much text so that the slides could do double-duty as a handout.

When our PowerPoint has to serve two purposes, as the presentation slides and as the handout, the presentation suffers.

Losing Time on Colors and Fonts

Have you ever used one of PowerPoint’s ugly and overused templates?

I have. A dozen times.

Have you lost time searching through folders and subfolders for your organization’s templates?

Have you lost time making your own templates?

Have you lost time thinking about colors?

Fonts?

Photos?

Sure, it takes time to create an initial corporate template with Theme Colors and Theme Fonts.

But these Word Hard Once techniques save a ton of time in the long run.

Losing time before each presentation on colors and fonts is a sure sign of Death by PowerPoint. When our minds are distracted by the minutiae of slide design, our audience feels the effects.

Including Lots of Graphs

I bet you’re already trying to avoid text-heavy slides.

But are you actively trying to avoid graph-heavy slides?

It sounds counterintuitive, I know. I teach dataviz for a living, after all. 😊

Our audience needs a variety of visuals. Not just graphs. They need graphs, tables, diagrams, photos, maps, logos, quotes, stories, and more.

Graph-heavy presentations are a subtle sign of Death by PowerPoint.

Having Trouble Editing Graphs

Is it tricky to update your graphs, tables, and diagrams once they’re inside PowerPoint?

Maybe you need to:

• Link your Excel spreadsheet to your PowerPoint slide (so that changes in Excel are reflected in PowerPoint);
• Make your fonts bigger or smaller in PowerPoint;
• Adjust the graph colors; or
• Change the chart type (e.g., from a vertical column chart to a horizontal bar chart).

There are plenty of behind-the-scenes techniques to make editing easier.

Editing the long, hard way is a sign of Death by PowerPoint.

Word-Vomiting Our Presentation’s “So What?”

Can you step back and write a “takeaway tweet” for your presentation?

It doesn’t matter if you’re prepping for a 5-minute update in your staff meeting, or a multi-day workshop, or a keynote speech.

You know the quote: “If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.”

If it takes us sentences and sentences and sentences to get to the point, then our presentation is probably causing Death by PowerPoint.

Feeling Weird on the Webcam

Pre-pandemic, were you comfortable speaking in-person?

Nowadays, in the world of daily Zooms, do you feel awkward on the webcam?

Maybe you’re:

• hesitating to turn on your webcam at all?
• wondering if you look okay?
• staring at your own face when you speak?

A lot of us feel weird on the webcam. It’s so different from being in-person.

But it doesn’t have to stay awkward.

There are plenty of rules of thumb: where to look, and for how long; which tech to use to give you a boost; and how to overcome your own self-consciousness about your appearance.

Including Lots of Details–Just in Case

Just in case someone wants to review the slides ahead of time.

Just in case someone asks a tough question.

Adding “just in case” information dilutes the power of our presentation, which is a sign of Death by PowerPoint.

Have you deleted your “just in case” graphs, tables, and diagrams?

If not, it’s Death by PowerPoint.

Guessing How to Use Our Hands

Years ago, when I first started studying public speaking, I read that I was supposed to “use my hands.”

The statistics were promising: We’re rated as being more trustworthy when the audience can see our hands.

Think of the biological roots from cavepeople days. When others can see our hands, they know we’re not holding a weapon. We’re approachable. We’re safe. We’re trustworthy.

At first, I wasn’t sure what to do:

• Hands placed firmly on the podium (for big conference talks)?
• Hands in front pockets (for smaller meetings)?
• Hands holding a notebook or tablet with notes?
• Hands holding a laser pointer?

I lost so much time guessing.

Can you explicitly name 5+ ways your hand motions can help your audience understand patterns in the data?

If not, it’s Death by PowerPoint.

Not Prioritizing Accessibility

“Little a” accessibility is making sure our graphs are easy for others to understand.

“Big A” Accessibility is making sure our graphs follow specific Federal government standards so that the can be read, viewed, and understood by people with disabilities.

Both types should be priorities in every presentation.

Can you name 5+ specific edits you’ve made to increase your presentation’s accessibility and Accessibility?

If not, it’s Death by PowerPoint.

Your Turn

How many subtle signs are you guilty of? 1, 2, 5, 10?

What about the staff members that you supervise?

—

Are you tired of text heavy reports to summarize grant findings?

Do you want to update the look and feel of your reporting templates?

Save time and energy by using static Excel dashboards to design your grant deliverables. 

Your program data will come to life before your eyes and your readers will thank you. 

Read on to learn more about my journey implementing static dashboards in a non-profit context.

Dashboard Design Course Comes to the Rescue

New to dashboard design, I enrolled in Ann K. Emery’s Dashboard Design course to help tackle an upcoming grant report with many moving parts. 

Mental Health America of Greater Houston’s (MHAGH) Center for School Behavioral Health (CSBH) received a two-year grant from the Rebuild Texas Fund in 2018 to help 9 school districts in the Greater Houston Area address emerging behavioral health needs from Hurricane Harvey and improve their ability to respond to future disasters. 

My Challenge: 9 School Districts x 21 Recommendations

To assess school district capacity for addressing student behavioral health needs, CSBH uses a rubric with 21 recommendations for addressing the prevention, early intervention, and treatment of behavioral health issues in students. 

My challenge was to show the progress each of the 9 Rebuild Texas school districts made implementing the 21 recommendations from start to finish of the grant.  

Using Static Dashboards to Track Progress Over Time

Cue the entrance of a tool that saved me time and created a great looking end-product: static Excel dashboards.

Here’s how I created two different styles of dashboards: A project overview, and individual report cards for each district.

Dashboard Showing the General Overview

To create a general overview tracking school district progress, I did the following:

• Clustered school districts in groups of 3 and added grey lines for easier reading.
• Used the start and end years to list how many recommendations were completed.
• Inserted trend arrows to show which districts had improved.  I decided to remove the arrows for neutral or declining trends to simplify takeaways and make the report less “busy” for the reader.
• Inserted deviation bars to show percentage of change from start to end.
• Ordered results from largest to smallest amount of change.

Individual District Report Cards

I then created individual district report cards by:

• Inserting checkboxes to indicate recommendation completion.
• Replacing deviation bars with progress bars to show the depth of implementation of each recommendation.
• Including grey shading in the background of the progress bars to indicate progress remaining.
• Inserting trend arrows to further indicate improvement since there might have been progress in implementation even though the recommendation was incomplete.

Recommendation-by-Recommendation Summary

I also included a recommendation-by-recommendation summary, which was categorized by fully and partially completed recommendations.

Conclusions Section

Finally, I created a section for conclusions to inform the reader of the progress made as well as areas for future improvement. 

Lessons Learned

Here are three lessons learned.

Excel is so Versatile

Excel is much more versatile than I thought.

There are so many functions in Excel that I was underutilizing, so many hidden treasures. 

The amount of visualization that can be done with the conditional formatting command alone was eye opening. 

Why pay more for expensive software when Excel can do the work?

Save Time Using Only One Software

Transferring work from Excel into other products can be overkill when you can just do it all in Excel. 

Save time by designing single or multi-page reports in Excel. A cinch after taking the Dashboard Design course.

Formatting Matters

This course helped me break bad habits and reconsider my assumptions. 

Here are some formatting takeaways:

• There is such a thing as using too much bold text.
• Consider using landscape view when designing reports. It’s easier on your reader not to have so many items crammed into a narrow portrait view.
• Use more white space, less is more.
• Webdings and Wingdings font, who knew?

Colleague Reception

While I enrolled in the Dashboard Design course to help me with a very specific project in mind, I have since designed static dashboards for all of my organization’s program areas and am only getting started! 

My colleagues have given very positive feedback, as the dashboards have made it easier to analyze their program data more comprehensively. 

They especially appreciate one-pagers that can be shared with different stakeholders, including board members and program collaborators. 

Upcoming Goals

Next on my list is using automation to create a series of matching goal tracking dashboards that let programs see their progress toward grant metrics by funder.  I am embracing automation in 2022! 

I’ll also be visualizing accounting data to help programs get a better understanding of their funding use. The areas for application within our organization are endless.

I hope other non-profit professionals working with data will be able to take advantage of this wonderful opportunity. 

Connect with Josephine Engels

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/josephine-engels-mhagh/

I want to talk about something that’s a little controversial in the dashboard space: There are 4 types of dashboards, all of which are correct.

You might need one type.

Or, you might need all four.

Every audience and every project is a little bit different.

Our goal is to deliver the right data, to the right audience, at the right time.

Watch the Video

Here’s a 12-minute video to help you narrow down which type(s) of dashboard you need for your next project.

First, you’ll think about your audience. Are they technical or non-technical? Leaders or doers?

Then, you’ll choose a software program. Sometimes you’ll need spreadsheets (like Excel), and other times you’ll need dashboard programs (like Tableau or PowerBI).

Here’s a summary of what’s inside the video.

Dashboard Mismatches to Avoid

What if the audience has one idea in their mind… and we design something completely different??

Sometimes we get lucky, and we make exactly what they want.

Other times, I see mismatches.

Common Dashboard Mismatch: Static vs. Interactive

Sometimes the audience really wants an interactive dashboard, but we make a static dashboard.

In real projects, that almost never happens. I typically see the opposite issue: We design an interactive dashboard, but they really needed a static dashboard.

Common Dashboard Mismatch: Single or Series

Here’s another dashboard mismatch I see a lot:

Sometimes the audience really wants a single dashboard, but we design a series of matching dashboards.

Or, I see the opposite:

The audience really wants a series of matching dashboards (e.g., one for Project A, one for Project B, and one for Project C), but we give them a single overview showing all three projects combined.

The Four Types of Dashboards

Let’s be proactive and avoid these dashboard mismatches altogether.

Here are some factors to consider at the very beginning of your next dashboard project.

Technical or Non-Technical?

Is your audience technical or non-technical?

Technical audiences love data, details, and decimal places.

Non-technical audiences would rather be doing something else, like leading the project, developing new policies, or managing the team.

Time is another factor: Are they busy? Or, do they have time to explore a dashboard on their own?

Non-technical or busy audiences tend to prefer static dashboards. These short PDFs can be shared as email attachments or as printed meeting handouts.

Technical audiences (or those with plenty of time available) tend to prefer interactive dashboards. They love exploring these clickable, dynamic dashboards and coming up with their own insights.

Leaders or Doers?

Next, figure out whether your audience is mostly leaders or doers.

The leaders need an aggregated overview of the work, e.g., one dashboard for the state as a whole.

The doers need individualized, disaggregated data, e.g., one dashboard for their charter school x dozens of charter schools in the project.

If we give the leaders the disaggregated dashboards, we risk that they’ll get lost in the weeds.

And if we give the doers the aggregated dashboards, we risk that it’s not actionable enough for them to do anything about the data.

Audience First, Software Second

AFTER we narrow down our audience, then we can choose a software program.

Single static dashboards can be made in spreadsheet programs, like Excel, Sheets, or Numbers. We can sorta make them in infographics programs like Canva or Piktochart; those templates are meh but they’re getting better all the time.

Need a series of matching dashboards? Spreadsheet programs can handle those, too. I make one template in Excel and then automatically populate it with all the dozens of dashboards’ data. You can write VBA code, connect everything with drop-downs and lookup formulas, or use Slicers.

Have a technical audience? Interactive dashboards are possible in Excel (via Excel Tables, pivot tables, pivot charts, and slicers). Or, you can make them in dashboard programs like Tableau or PowerBI. Or, you can learn coding (e.g., R).

In the video, you’ll see real-life examples of these dashboards, too.

Download the Diagram

Want to download this diagram? Share it with your team, and discuss it together at the beginning of your next dashboard project. Let’s avoid those mismatches altogether.

Your Turn

Do you currently have any dashboards?

Who are they for? Non-technical or technical audiences? Busy people, or those with time available? Leaders or doers?