Last week, I applied the optimist vs. pessimist style to a map during Office Hours.

(The real version of the map was about a different topic in a different state, but you get the idea.)

The Traditional Map

I’ve written about traditional and storytelling approaches before. You’re probably familiar with this terminology already?

The traditional version would have a topical title and regular ol’ brand colors.

The Storytelling Map: Optimist Version

In this optimist version, we’ve got a:

• “good” takeaway title;
• “good” brand color;
• “good” icon; and a
• call-out box highlighting a superstar.

The Storytelling Map: Pessimist Version

In this pessimist version, we’ve got a:

• “bad” takeaway title;
• “bad” brand color;
• “bad” icon; and a
• call-out box highlighting a laggard.

Which Version Should You Use?

That obviously depends on your audience and context.

You’re welcome to comment here with your own insights. I read every response.

Download These Maps

Want the Excel file that I used to create these maps? You can download it here.

The post Optimist vs. Pessimist Maps appeared first on Depict Data Studio.

Here are two common layouts that I’ve used over and over:

1. The filters along the top
2. The filters on the left side

Honestly, those are the only two layouts you should be using.

In other words, we’d never want to hide the filters along the bottom. And I don’t recommend placing the filters on the right side (because we read from left to right).

Here’s an example of each style.

(1) Dashboard Filters at Top

Here’s an example of a dynamic dashboard with a filter along the top of the screen.

These are pretend numbers, but inspired by a real dashboard I created during a workshop with a nonprofit organization. They wanted to be able to drill-down and look at a single cohort of participants at a time (just the Monday morning group, just the Saturday afternoon group, or just the Sunday evening group).

There are a dozen different graphs and maps, so it was impossible to fit everything on a single screen. (We didn’t want to sacrifice the font size – it’s nice and legible now, and if we shrunk everything down, it would be unusable.) So, the filter stays stuck at the top of the screen, and then the viewers can scroll downwards to see all the graphs.

(In Excel, we froze the panes so that the top few rows wouldn’t move.)

(2) Dashboard Filters Along the Left

Here’s a dashboard about fictional car sales.

There were several charts and maps, and I couldn’t fit everything on a single screen without sacrificing font size and readability.

So, the two filters are frozen on the left side, and viewers can scroll to the right to see all the graphs.

How to Make Dynamic Dashboards

Want to make something similar for your own workplace?

Here are all my dashboard blog posts and YouTube tutorials.

In particular, you might like these examples of dynamic dashboards made in Excel that you can use for inspiration.

Here’s a how-to video about making dynamic dashboards in Excel and another how-to video about making dynamic dashboards in PowerBI.

I also teach private workshops and online courses about dashboard design.

Do you have specific questions? Reach out anytime.

The post 2 Common Dashboard Layouts: Filters at Top & Filters on Left Side appeared first on Depict Data Studio.

Excel can’t directly link pivot tables and maps.

We’ll run into an annoying error message.

In this video, you’ll learn the workaround: a Helper Table with a dynamic array function.

The post Adding Interactive Maps to Excel Dashboards appeared first on Depict Data Studio.

Transcript

[00:00:00] I wanna show you a really fun way to use maps.

And, as usual, you can do this inside everyday software like Excel and PowerPoint and Word.

So a few hours ago I was on a client call and I looked at their before version of a table and it looked like:

this.

It was just a black and white table, and they were like, “Ann, we wanna keep it as a table, but it can’t be so boring. We don’t want it to put people to sleep.”

Now these are obviously nobody’s real numbers. These are obviously nobody’s real hospital names, but the table did look like this with one column per location.

And the locations in real life were in different countries around the world.

So here is the idea that I shared with the client, and I wanna share with you too:

adding maps as icons above each column of the table.

In their real slide deck, and their real report, They had many, many tables like this, comparing the hospitals and showing all the data.

So you could [00:01:00] obviously repeat the little country icons, the little country silhouettes over and over and over throughout the slide deck and throughout the report for nice consistency.

Now you could use them in dark brand colors. This is Ann Emery’s brand purple that you probably recognize.

And try playing around with it. You know, adjust the colors ever so slightly. You can also try lighter versions of your brand colors and you can also try gray. Okay.

Now, this isn’t the only way to visualize this table, but it is the fastest.

This whole thing took me maybe 10 minutes max to make from start to finish.

I just made it in Excel and then I pasted it into PowerPoint.

As usual, If you have any how to questions, comment down below, and I will certainly point you in the right direction.

The post Maps as Icons appeared first on Depict Data Studio.

What’s Inside

• 0:00 The 2-pager about NIH grant terminations
• 2:20 Lookup table with Stateface icons
• 2:38 Original table from the policy brief
• 2:47 The dataset
• 2:58 Idea 1: A better table that’s Accessible and accessible
• 3:22 Idea 2: A static graph or map
• 3:40 Idea 3: An interactive visualization
• 3:55 Idea 4: A 2-page infographic
• 4:06 The call-out boxes with icons at the top
• 4:12 The finished map
• 4:30 The finished table
• 4:42 Color-coding by category
• 4:51 Big-picture first, then more detailed, then more detailed
• 5:15 The finished product again
• 5:29 More ideas for the original policy brief
• 6:04 Let’s connect

Download the Spreadsheet

It’s here.

The post Designing a 2-Page Infographic: NIH Grant Terminations appeared first on Depict Data Studio.

In this video, you’ll see 3 examples of these intermediate cells, which give you full editing control over your graphs, maps, and tables.

What’s Inside

• 0:00 Intro
• 1:28 What are Helper Cells? Regular Table — Intermediate Table — Graph
• 1:57 Population Pyramid Example
• 5:04 Recoding Example
• 7:15 Map Example

Related Resources

• How to Make Population Pyramids in Excel
• Troubleshooting Excel Maps

The post What are Helper Cells? appeared first on Depict Data Studio.