Get your stakeholders involved in the sense-making process!

Are you familiar with data placemats?

Here’s how they work:

1. Design Data Placemats
2. Facilitate an Interpretation Meeting
3. Include those Insights in the Final Report or Slideshow

Step 1: Design Data Placemats

First, we analyze the data and display key findings in data placemats. You might display survey responses, for example.

These placemats should include traditional graphs. That means the graph titles contain the topic area, not the takeaway finding, and there’s no color contrast. Imagine a bar chart where every bar is the same color, so that nothing stands out. It’s up to the viewer to figure out the “so what?” for themselves.

We can make data placemats in any software program. You know I’m a champion for everyday software. PowerPoint’s my top choice for data placemats because it’s easy to arrange multiple graphs on the slide.

Your placemats might look like this, with one page per survey topic.

Step 2: Facilitate an Interpretation Meeting

Next, we gather people together, either virtually or in-person.

During the meeting, we’re facilitators, not lecturers.

It’s a conversation, not a presentation.

We ask questions like:

• “What surprises you about the data?”
• “What factors might explain the patterns we’re seeing?”
• “What additional questions do you have?”

The goal is to get attendees to verbalize the takeaway findings in their own words. We listen, listen, listen.

Step 3: Include those Insights in the Final Report or Slideshow

Finally, we go back to our offices and create a final deliverable for the project, like a report or slideshow (if needed).

The final version should include storytelling graphs, which means the graphs have the takeaway findings in the graph titles, and include color contrast. Imagine a bar chart where everything’s grayed-out except for the one important bar in a darker color.

The interpretation meeting becomes a data collection event; we quote the meeting attendees and include that qualitative data in the final report.

This process not only gets stakeholders involved in the process–making it more likely that they’ll use the findings–but makes the final report or slideshow even richer.

Learn More

I learned this technique years ago from Veena Pankaj. Veena and I published an article about placemats together that you read can here: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/ev.20181

Your Turn

Have you used data placemats in your project? Comment and share tips of your own!

The post Data Placemats: A 3-Step Process for Increasing Data Use appeared first on Depict Data Studio.

Option A: Axis stretches just past the actual maximum value (30% in this example)

The biggest number is 26%, and the axis goes from 0% to 30%, just past the biggest number in the bunch. Your stakeholders will think the 26% looks enormous because it stretches all the way across the screen. Wow, look at our numbers! Great news! Of course, we’ll have to work on Category D, but we can certainly improve that number! Especially when the other categories are looking so good! Talk to your teammates: is this the message we’re going for?

Option B: Axis stretches all the way to the potential maximum value (100% in this example)

What if the numbers have the potential to stretch all the way to 100%? (The percentage of attendees who said they’d recommend your conference to a colleague, the percentage of students who graduated on time, and so on.) If you’re trying to hit 100%, now the 26% isn’t looking so hot. Argh. We thought everything was going so well! We’ve got so much to improve upon. Where do we even start?! Ask your teammates: is this the right time to risk overwhelming the stakeholders with so much bad news?
My advice: Good facilitation skills are an ingredient of good data visualization. I often begin with the first graph to avoid scaring stakeholders away from action. As we get to know each other  — and they get to know their numbers — I slowly introduce the second style.
When choosing minimum and maximum axis values, what other factors do you consider?

Download the template.

The post The Graph’s Scale: Actual Maximum Value or Potential Maximum Value? appeared first on Depict Data Studio.