And if we’ve already got the exact values within the graph itself, the y-axis can become even more cluttered.

In this video, you’ll learn how to adjust your graph’s vertical scale so that it only shows the minimum and maximum value. You’ll adjust the min and max “bounds” and the “units.”

You’ll also get bonus tips for setting up this chart type, the columns with a target/goal line. This is a “combo chart” in Excel. You’ll need to set up the table in a very specific format to get this chart to display correctly.

What’s Inside

• 0:00 Overview
• 0:24 Welcome to Dataviz On The Go
• 0:32 Setting Up the Table for the “Combo Chart”
• 1:54 The Edited Chart (Dataviz Best Practices)
• 2:16 How to Only Label the Min and Max
• 4:11 Download the Spreadsheet
• 4:20 Don’t Forget to Like, Subscribe, and Share

Download the Spreadsheet

It’s here: https://depictdatastudio.ck.page/onlylabelminandmax

Read the Transcript

Ann K. Emery: [00:00:00] In this video, you’re going to learn how to only label the min and the max on your scale. Like this. Instead of putting the labels on the columns and the scale, we only need the min and the max on the scale. Otherwise, it would be redundant. If this seems like it might be relevant to you and your workplace, stick around, I’ll give you some context, and then I’ll get into the how tos.

It’s Ann Emery. You’re watching Dataviz on the Go, the series where I make quick tutorials as I’m racing around between my meetings and my workshops. All right, let’s get into the context and then the how to’s. This is how you’d have to set up your table for this style of graph. You would list out your fictional project names in this example, the actual number that you want to appear in your columns or a percentage or a currency, and then you’d repeat the target

over and over and over in the third column, you’re going to arrange them least to greatest so that you get that [00:01:00] order in your chart least to greatest. You’re going to add an intentional gap in your table. That’s on purpose because guess what? Yep. You guessed it. It creates an intentional gap in your chart.

And then the final thing you need to know here is you’re going to have this target appear one extra time at the end. Okay. Because that’s what helps the line extend a little bit beyond the columns so that you can add a nice direct label right here. Okay. That’s the gist of how you need to set up your table for this style chart, which is the columns with the target line or the goal line.

It’s going to be a combo chart. So you’re going to highlight your table. You’re going to insert a combo chart. You’re going to get this mess. Which isn’t helpful and doesn’t tell us everything. And also has the super redundant, super detailed scale right here as well. The edited version is going to look mostly like this grouping by color, a nice dark light contrast here.

You’re [00:02:00] going to gray out the target line because that’s the sidekick. That’s not the main character. You’re going to add some words. You’re going to add a little bit of math. You’re going to add some icons. Okay. It’s pretty much done. It’s pretty much done with the exception of the overly labeled scale like this.

So the how to’s, let me copy and paste this chart. So as usual, we can admire them side by side, and here’s where you’re going to click. You’re going to click on the. The numbers on the scale. You have to be really careful here. Don’t click on the white space between the numbers, click on the actual number, click on the numeral on the actual font color here, not in the white space.

Okay. You click there. You see the rectangle appear around the outside of the numbers. You do a right click, you go to the bottom of your list right here. Format axis, and it pulls up this sidebar for us. You can see the min and the max. That’s pretty easy to follow, right? If the biggest number is a [00:03:00] 951, let’s make it extend to a thousand.

Nice, even round number, a little bit bigger than the biggest number. This is the part you have to adjust right here. The units, the units mean how often do you want a demarcation. Excel guesses. It’s gonna guess too much. It’s gonna guess too often. It guessed right here. It said, how about every hundred? And I’m like, nope, because why?

Why? Right? If you already have the exact values on the columns, you don’t need the numbers to estimate the values because there’s no estimation needed. They already have the exact values. You could do something like I don’t do this. I’m just going to show you what this does. If you insert a 250 here, then you get a demarcation every 250.

So if you only want to label the min and the max, then whatever your max value is, that’s what’s going to go in this box. Got it? If your scale goes from zero to a thousand, then you want a demarcation [00:04:00] every Thousand units. You press enter, it shows you every thousand. Now it’s perfect. We’ve got the min and the max on the scale, plus the exact values on the columns.

If you wanna download this spreadsheet and dig around and explore and see how I set everything up, look below this video and there’s a link to download it. Don’t forget to like, subscribe and share.

The post How to Label Only the Min and Max on the Excel Graph appeared first on Depict Data Studio.

Technical tables have so much value, especially as visual appendices for reports.

In this blog post, you’ll get ideas for bringing your technical tables to life.

Before

Here’s what the “before” version of some technical tables looked like.

These are made-up numbers, but you get the idea.

The public health staff wanted to look at quarterly numbers, the total annual number, and the rate (the number of cases per 100,000 live births).

Even if you’re not measuring neonatal abstinence syndrome, I bet there are numbers that you track each quarter. You might even want to look at the total annual number, too. Get some inspiration from this blog post, and then adapt the ideas to your own workplace.

Re-Created in Excel

First, I re-made their table in good ol’ Excel.

The finished product will be a PDF, but the most efficient way to bring technical tables to life is to keep the numbers inside Excel the entire time. We’re not going to transfer anything to Word.

Declutter

Let’s tackle the easy edits, such as:

• removing all the borders;
• adding back just the gray horizontal borders;
• removing the background fill; and
• left-aligning the text and right-aligning the numbers.

Add Trendlines

We’ll bring the quarterly trends to life with sparklines.

Add Bars

We’ll bring the annual totals to life with data bars:

We’ll bring the rates to life with data bars, too:

Brand Colors & Brand Fonts

Time to format!

We’ll apply brand colors and brand fonts:

We’ll color-code the text to match the bars.

(Sometimes the table’s columns get so narrow that it’s tricky to tell which number corresponds to which bar. That’s where color-coding comes to the rescue.)

As a general rule of thumb, colored font should be bold so that it passes 508/ADA color contrast guidelines.

Text Hierarchy & Intro Sentences

A text hierarchy means the title should be largest, boldest, and darkest so that it’s easiest to spot. (Followed by H1s and H2s if we had them.) We’re developing a hierarchy of information so our readers can stay organized.

As a general rule of thumb, I make sure headings are twice as big as body font. The body font is size 11, so this title is size 22 and bold.

We’ll also add intro sentences, and move that footnote info about the asterisks to the top. (People need to read that sentence before the table, not after.)

PDF- and Printer-Friendly

We’ve kept everything in Excel — that’s the only way to add the spark lines and data bars, and pasting tables into Word is a waste of time — but the final version will be shared with others as a PDF.

In the real version of this project, the PDF was about 15 pages long. There were various tabulations on various topics, not just neonatal abstinence syndrome.

We’ll need to:

• set the Print Area;
• adjust the Page Layout (portrait to landscape for easier on-screen reading);
• adjust the margins (0.5 to 1 inches is sufficient);
• add contact info and a logo so people can get in touch with questions; and
• adjust the column widths and row heights so everything fits juuust right.

Optional: Sort by Rates, Not Alphabetically

Finally, we might choose to sort the table by the most important column (rates, in this example) instead of alphabetically by county name.

I’m usually a fan of sorting. But I’m on the fence here. I also see the value in the leaving the counties alphabetized so readers can search for their own county. Hmm.

The Final Version

The visuals help us spot the patterns (thanks, Picture Superiority Effect).

The branding will help us look more professional to outside audiences (so we don’t look Frankensteined — when all our colleagues use different colors and fonts, and we put everything together in one doc, and it’s a hot mess).

The PDF’d appendices can be merged with the PDF’d report (thanks, Adobe Acrobat).

The Before-After Transformation

Once you’ve got intermediate/advanced Excel vizardry skills, the whole process will take less than an hour.

Really, this should take you less than 15 minutes!

If not, you’ll simply need to brush up on your Excel skills.

Dataviz is supposed to be fast and easy.

Bonus: Download the Materials

Want to explore my spreadsheet? Download my Excel file and adapt it for your own project.

The post How to Bring Your Technical Tables to Life appeared first on Depict Data Studio.

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.

The post The Data Visualization Design Process: A Step-by-Step Guide for Beginners appeared first on Depict Data Studio.

Here’s one of my favorite table decluttering tips: Change the black zeros into gray dashes—with formulas and conditional formatting.

Before: Zeros in Black

Does your table have lots of zeros?

Sometimes my tables have huge values—numbers, percentages, or currency into the thousands, millions, or even billions.

Other times, my tables have small values—lots of single digit and double digit numbers, and even some zeros, like this one.

I recently worked on a dashboard project with a foundation where our n was just 11 grantees. It was the smallest n I’d worked with in a while!

This table is fictional, but you get the idea.

Here’s the old way to show zeros: In black text.

After: Manually Adding Dashes with the Single Quote “Finger Wag”

Let’s replace the 0s with dashes.

In Excel, here’s how:

• If you type a dash, Excel will get confused. Excel thinks we’re creating a subtraction formula.
• Instead, start with a single quote, a.k.a. the Finger Wag. We’re scolding Excel. The single quote means, “Don’t change my format! Leave whatever I type after the single quote alone! This isn’t supposed to be a subtraction formula! It’s just a dash!”

The finished product would look like this (below).

Now, we can actually see the zeros better!

It’s easier to see that Grantee H had an entire row of zeros. Variables D and E also had more zeros than the other variables.

After: Manually Making the Dashes Light Gray

Let’s keep going.

I usually make the dashes gray (so they disappear even more).

You can simply change the font color.

After: Automatically Adding Dashes with an IF Statement

But what if your tables values come from another source? (So there are formulas living behind the scenes?) In that case, we can’t simply type a dash by hand. It would remove the formula.

In this example, I’m pretending we’ve got a separate dataset on its own sheet.

The table is a sum of all those entries.

My tables often have sumifs, countifs, xlookups, and more living behind the scenes, like this:

We can adjust our existing formulas just a tad.

I add IF statements so that if my formula results in a zero, then it shows a dash:

After: Automatically Making Dashes Gray with Conditional Formatting

Finally, let’s add another time-saver.

Let’s use Conditional Formatting to automatically turn the dashes gray.

The fewer manual changes, the better!

Formulas and Conditional Formatting save our future selves a lot of time. If we add new entries to our dataset, then the formulas will automatically update.

Formulas and Conditional Formatting also reduce typos. We won’t accidentally forget about one of the zeros.

Here’s how:

1. Highlight the table.
2. Go to the Home tab.
3. Click on the Conditional Formatting button.
4. Choose Highlight Cells Rules.
5. Choose Text That Contains.
6. In the pop-up window, type a dash.
7. Instead of “Light Red Fill with Dark Red Text,” go to the bottom of the drop-down list, and choose Custom Format.
8. On the next pop-up window, change the font color to gray.

That sounds like a lot of steps, but it’s fast, I promise!

Once you get familiar with Conditional Formatting, it only takes this long:

Yes, You Can Transfer Formatted Tables from Excel into PowerPoint or Word

Here’s how you’ll transfer your table into Word:

1. In Excel, finish formatting the table. I added gray lines between the rows and I “hid” the grid lines from the cells (View tab –> uncheck the Gridlines box. Sure, you can adjust the borders later in Word, but table formatting is generally a pain in Word. I try to do 99.9% of the formatting in Excel.
2. In Excel, I highlighted and copied the table with good ol’ CTRL + C.
3. In Word, I went to Paste –> the down-arrow–> Keep Source Formatting.
4. Then, in Word, I re-sized the table to fit the page.

It looks like this:

Here’s how you’ll transfer your table into PowerPoint:

1. In Excel, finish formatting the table. I added gray lines between the rows; I “hid” the grid lines from the cells (View tab –> uncheck the Gridlines box); and I re-sized the columns (wider) and rows (taller). Sure, you can adjust these things in PowerPoint later… but it’s such a pain. I prefer formatting in Excel first, and then transferring to PowerPoint.
2. In Excel, I highlighted and copied the table with good ol’ CTRL + C.
3. In PowerPoint, I went to Paste –> the down-arrow –> Keep Source Formatting.
4. Then, in PowerPoint, increase the font size. I recommend 18+ for presentations.

Please don’t take screenshots from Excel and paste them into other programs. Your table will get blurry.

Please don’t transfer tables and graphs as images. They’ll get blurry.

Please don’t take screenshots from Excel and paste them into other programs. They’ll be blurry.

Please don’t transfer tables and graphs as images. They’ll be blurry.

Download the Spreadsheet

If you’re familiar with sumifs, if, and Conditional Formatting, then this will be fast and easy for you!

If you’re new to sumifs, if, and Conditional Formatting, then download my spreadsheet. You can click through the formulas yourself to see how everything is set up: https://depictdatastudio.gumroad.com/l/UseGrayDashesInsteadOfZeros

The post How to Use Gray Dashes Instead of Zeros in Tables appeared first on Depict Data Studio.

Today you’ll learn from JC De Jesus, Vice-President of Service Delivery for an internet-provider based in Canada. Thanks for sharing, JC! –Ann

—–

“The world rewards people who are best at communicating ideas, not the people with the best ideas”

@david_perell

The ability to communicate effectively is a key skill in any venture, business or personal. Depending on your specific situation, effective communication skills can vary, and cover a wide range of topics. 

A student presenting in class with a set agenda topic and visual aids will communicate very differently from, say, a company CEO or a manager leading a team through a complex project over several weeks or months.

Communicating via Salesforce Chatter

In our company, Salesforce Chatter is one tool for effective communication. 

Chatter is like a social-media platform but for business.  You follow co-workers to see their posts (like Twitter or LinkedIn), you can join groups and see group updates (like Facebook).  It also has a top-notch mobile app.  

And as you can imagine, just like any social-media app, your newsfeed can get really, really busy!

For a leader sharing an update to the team or the entire company, it’s important for your update to be as concise and engaging as possible for it to be effective.

Using a 1-Pager to Effectively Communicate Internally

I run a large team and share updates in Chatter. One of the things I find to be effective is using 1-pagers. 

Instead of dense and text-heavy presentations, I minimize the text to include only the main points and actions I need from my team. This way, the 1-pager can be read in 2 minutes or less.

Here’s a 1-pager I’ve posted recently. This is for an ongoing project with many stakeholders. 

Notice some of the key elements:

• Headers. The header “We Deliver Better” is in large, bolded font.
• Page Layout. The layout is a 2-column format, which makes the sentences appear shorter and easier to read.
• Outline. Notice the five-topic outline with icons. Those 5 topics stand out because of the larger font size and font color (blue) that’s different from the rest of the text.
• Visual Framework. The icons emphasize each of the 5 topics. These are also used in slidedeck presentations for consistency.
• Branding. It uses our corporate brand colours and logo.
• Divider Lines. There are no divider lines between rows and columns. Those are not needed if we give the page a lot of white space, which I’ve attempted to do here by cutting down on text.  Cutting down on text while getting the full message is the hardest part in putting this together!
• Skimmability. Key phrases are in bold to make it more scannable.
• Hashtag. And, of course, the hashtag #DeliveryExperience on the top right.

My goal was to write something that can be read in 2 minutes or less by a wide audience (100+ people), and the 1-pager format helps me achieve exactly that.

And for anyone who wants to get into more detail, we also have a 30-minute slidedeck. It uses many of the same elements as the 1-pager.

By having a variety of approaches in communicating, I’m able to appeal to and share information with my audiences much more effectively.

Connect with JC

LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/jc-dejesusus

Twitter:  @technophone

The post Communicating with Your Audience More Effectively: Using One-Pagers Internally appeared first on Depict Data Studio.

Friends, Esther’s data visualization edits are game-changing.

In one of her presentations, for example, Esther swapped her bullet points for engaging visuals. She added graphs, diagrams, screenshots, logos, and photographs. Every visual had a purpose. Every visual helped to better communicate her research project’s key takeaway findings.

Keep up the great work, Esther!!!

Taking Ann’s Introduction to Data Visualization course through The Evaluators’ Institute (TEI) was the most immediately applicable skills-building workshop I have ever taken. Not just at TEI, but ever. Within days of completing her course, I began going through every presentation or report that I was working on and began Emerizing them. My colleagues and friends took notice and started asking me, “Where did you learn that? Teach me that!”

I wish I could do her material justice. Ann has such a great way of delivering examples and tips for better data visualization. Each lesson makes you feel like you’ve always known it to be true, but just needed someone to show you how to make it so. She provides the perfect balance of theory and practice so that methodologists like myself appreciate the research behind data viz methods and then also know how to create the most appropriate visualization(s) for my data.

You can feel tension releasing in the room as she demonstrates before and after transformations of some of the most heinous visualizations that we have all done at one point in our lives—admit it, you’ve created a 3D pie chart. Hindsight is truly 20/20 because now there are things I just cannot unsee, like old reports or presentations that I am now too disgusted to ever look at again.

Now since I’m one class wiser, the only way I can give back is by continuing to spread the data viz gospel to others who are on this journey as well.

Here are the three most used lessons that I took away from Ann’s class.

1. Never Guess Colors Again

Ann taught us about the importance of using your company’s or client’s color palette to better visualize your work. Part of your/their branding should be that all outward-facing media align with the company’s theme. Again, this was not necessarily new information to me, but it was a healthy reminder because I was previously most concerned with the differentiation of categories. Ann taught us three things about colors that I now use with every data visualization.

Use a Color Identifier Tool

If you’ve ever been like me, you might have guessed at the closest shade to a color that you were trying to select. This might start with selecting a generic purple, for example, and then using the hue slider until you decided to accept the difference was negligible. She showed us a neat (FREE!) tool called the Instant Eyedropper (http://instant-eyedropper.com/), which will give you the color code for any color that you hover over on your computer screen.

Save Color Palettes

I was always reentering colors for new presentations and documents for the same company. This was exhausting and frustrating! I had enough sense to write down the RGB codes on a Post-It note for one company’s palette that I most frequently used and stuck it on the corner of my monitor. However, Ann taught us to save frequently used color themes in our Microsoft programs (see figure below) so that they could be easily selected and used across documents. Once saved in one program, it would be available across all Microsoft programs on that computer. Voila!

Use Colors to Tell a Story

Sometimes, we use colors to differentiate every category from one another. Ann really emphasized the use of colors for story telling because, maybe, you just want to highlight one category/statistic apart from all the rest. Accompanying this with a meaningful call out box or title are tricks that were game changers for me.

2. Less is More

You really don’t realize how much unnecessary stuff we include in data visualizations until Ann starts stripping them away in front of you one piece at a time and you realize…you don’t really miss it. Coming from academia, my traditional sense of formatting charts and tables were defined by some formal style guide. When given the freedom to break the mold, you begin to appreciate what is essential and what really is not. This minimalist approach helps to declutter your delivery and helps your audience appreciate the message you are trying to convey.

This lesson also came in the form of making your written work concise and palatable. Ann’s 30-3-1 approach is a hard but good lesson in focusing on the aspects that are absolutely necessary to be shared? If you’re not sure about your storyline or take-home message(s) to feature, this approach has helped me draw them out because you are forced to keep only what is pertinent for your audience to follow.

3. Work Smarter, Not Harder

Although Ann recommended fancy software options for data visualizations, she also took us back to the basics. For those of us who may not be able to or want to invest in expense software, Ann showed us how to take advantage of programs like Microsoft Office to produce useful visualizations. Many techniques are not very complex and can be duplicated or modified for future uses as well!

In short, I really enjoyed Ann’s class and continue to apply these skills regularly in my work. Although I still have much to learn, Ann continues to be a wonderful resource and cheerleader to support my growing skills in data visualization. Thanks, Ann!

The post Work Smarter, Not Harder, When Visualizing Data appeared first on Depict Data Studio.