If you work in global health as I do, that statement needs no explanation.

For anyone who is not sure what I mean by that: when I took the class, a key challenge was trying to synthesize and summarize abundant global health data into actionable information products. I fretted about how to convince colleagues to use our project’s branding and data visualization guidelines, how to get them to attach the label to the line on a line graph rather than in a legend somewhere else on the graph. I took for granted the global health resources like the Demographic Health Surveys.

A few months after taking the course, USAID was dismantled, and funding was slashed for many other federal government agencies. Dozens and dozens of my friends and former colleagues lost their jobs.

Meanwhile, much of the hyperbolic hype around AI makes it seem like all knowledge workers are going to be replaced soon.

In this climate, it might seem superfluous to talk about tips and tricks for making reports more appealing.

I’ll offer two examples of useful things I learned during the course, one simple and one more theoretical.

Fewer Colors

The first is simple but powerful.

I admired the clean design that I saw in Ann’s communications.

My designs, in comparison, seemed too cluttered.

During the class I realized that it was because Ann uses a limited color palette and largely uses colors gradations in graphs rather than using many different colors.

Templates to Create Structure

I decided to take Report Redesign because I was being asked to help write and design policy briefs, but I had never learned how to do that.

I thought the course would empower me to make suggestions– even though it wasn’t exactly the focus of the course – and it did!

The course materials included templates, and the tutorials explained how to create templates. It is a huge time-saver to start with template rather than developing each product from the blank page. 

Using those as inspiration, I developed simple PowerPoint templates and an accompanying worksheet to help teams brainstorm their key messages and decide how to present them visually.

My team has shared these resources during several webinars, and colleagues have said that they appreciated the straightforward guidance. 

I am glad I took the Report Redesign class, and I would encourage others to take it as well.

There will always be a need to communicate data clearly and accurately.

The class is a great balance of theory and practice.

The time allotted is enough to learn hands-on skills but still a reasonable time commitment for people with full-time jobs.

Connect with Emma Williams

On LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/emma-williams-7144aa7/

The post Fewer Colors & Report Templates by Emma Williams appeared first on Depict Data Studio.

Just like all your graphs, maps, and diagrams, your icons deserve some TLC, too.

Icons can get cartoonish or steal the show if they’re not formatted well.

What’s Inside

• 0:00 Intro
• 0:31 This Case Study
• 1:47 Smaller Icons
• 2:14 Colored or Gray Icons
• 2:37 Review of the 4 Options
• 3:10 How to Insert New Icons
• 3:33 The Icon Menu in Word
• 4:21 Editing the Default Icons
• 5:26 Special Guest

Transcript

Ann K. Emery: [00:00:00] Your icons might be too big or too dark. In this video, I’m going to show you a few variations side by side so you can sit back and compare. And at the end, stick around if you’d like a how to tutorial, because I’m going to show you how to get started with icons that are built right inside of good old Excel and PowerPoint and Word.

I’m Ann Emery. You’re watching Dataviz On The Go, the series where I make quick tutorials for you as I’m racing around between my conferences and consulting and podcasts and blog posts and workshops. And speaking of workshops, I was just giving a half day virtual workshop. And one of the case studies that we looked at from that group looked something like this.

This obviously isn’t their real report, but the report was structured more or less like this. They had the report title right here at the top. They had a couple introductory paragraphs. And then they had looked through their whole full report and pulled out five key highlights. I love using icons like this for highlights.

I [00:01:00] just wanted to fine tune these a little bit and show them a few variations, which I’m going to show to you in a moment. Okay, these obviously aren’t their real icons, but the icons were this size. One by one inch, and this color, filled in black icons. And then below there, they had all the rest of the stuff.

And on the following pages, pages two, three, four, and so on, they had lots of graphs and maps and diagrams and all sorts of other visuals. I worried that these icons were stealing the show. I wanted them to be the main character, but not like the in your face main character. So, hence the variations. Let me zoom out and show you a couple ideas side by side, okay?

The first thing that we played around with was what if we made the icons just a little bit smaller? We go from one by one inch to half inch, so they’re still the main [00:02:00] character, just not so in your face. Okay, look at just the difference in ink, right? Now you can see all the words, you can see the little boxes underneath them a little bit better.

Let me show you a couple more options. What if instead of default black icons, we try either a brand color or gray. You would use your real brand color. I’m using the Depict Data Studio purple right here. So this would look a little bit different, of course, or a light gray.

One by one inch, solid colored black, smaller black, or my personal favorites, brand color or gray. If you ever try icons and your boss is like, I don’t like them. Get them out of there. Remove them. It’s probably because they’re too big and too dark. Nobody likes icons that are [00:03:00] too big and too dark. They almost look cartoonishly big.

So try making them smaller, try making them a brand color, or try making them lighter. In case you’re new to icons, let me give you a quick, quick 101 level tutorial. They’re here. They’re under insert, and then there’s the icons button. You have to be on the latest version of Word to see these though. So if you don’t see the icons button, you’re going to have to go update your Word to get these built in icons.

Insert icons. You click on that. You get the menu. You go through. You enjoy all the nice icons, right? There are filled versions. There are outlined versions. You’re going to pick one or the other. I picked filled. In this case, you want consistency. I wouldn’t do filled outline, filled outline. That would be weird.

There’s also a search bar in case you need it. In real life, I almost never use any of these icons. I usually use these symbols in a lot of my graphs to talk about like, [00:04:00] you know, we met the target, we met the objective, or this thing increased, this thing decreased, or I’ll do numbered lists with these fancy icons.

The numbers with the circle around them. Okay. Insert icons, pick your icon. Let’s pick the barn. Why not? Let’s go with the barn for today. I’m feeling in a barn mood. By default, look, it gives you the size that it gives you. It gives you one by one inch icons and it gives you black. You can edit this. When you first insert the icon, it pulls up the editing features.

You don’t have to do anything special, but in case you’re clicked off, you know, you’re editing this later. All you have to do is. Click on your icon. It’s going to pull up this graphics format tab for you. And in there, you can adjust the fill. You could make it a brand color. These are my theme colors already added into this file, or you could make it a nice gray.

You can also [00:05:00] adjust the size instead of one inch by one inch, maybe do a half inch. That’s typically the size that I pick for Word. Typically for PowerPoint, because PowerPoint is going to be a bigger screen, one inch is typically okay on PowerPoint. I just want you to know you have control over this. You have control over the color and the size.

So you can make intentional design choices and not just stick with whatever Excel gives you or Word gives you by default. Don’t forget to like, subscribe, and share! Hi baby, what do you see?

The post Your Dataviz Icons: Too Big and Too Dark? appeared first on Depict Data Studio.

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.

The post Redesigning a Thesis Chapter appeared first on Depict Data Studio.

Under the guidance of the inestimable Ann Emery’s “Report Redesign” course, I had a go at making the contents page of a previous evaluation report meaningful.

Here are the steps I followed.

For anonymity, I have renamed the evaluand as (gender org) and the funder as (funder).

The Original

Here’s what the initial Table of Contents looked like:

Draft 1

I cut my multi-page contents page from three heading levels to only Heading 1s.

Draft 2

I changed some headings to be more meaningful.

For example,

• from ‘Summary Report’ to ‘Highlights’
• from ‘Methodology’ to ‘The Outcome Harvesting Approach’; and
• from ‘Contributions that influenced the outcomes’ to ‘The role of (gender org), gender specialists and (funder)’.

Draft 3

I grouped the headings, named the groups, and set it up in landscape.

I also enlarged ‘Contents,’ in response to one of Ann’s ongoing exhortations to “double the size of the headings from what you currently use.”

I moved from Word into PowerPoint.

Draft 4

I created a section divider in my brand colours and added icons.

Ann proposes use of such dividers for short reports, with a different colour for each section – in long reports you’d use a whole page for each section.

I used her ’20-minute page cover’ method by layering a cylinder shape in my brand colour, somewhat transparent, over a Word Cloud, and ‘Contents’ on top.

I added an icon to each section and recoloured the sections to colours I will use for the divider page and headings of each section, taken from my brand colours.

Draft 5

I re-coloured the section divider and put in page numbers.

As ‘gender’ in the Word Cloud overwhelmed the heading, I used the ‘textures’ option in ‘format colours’ to create a grey textured layer over the Word Cloud, and changed the colour of ‘Contents.’

To me this shift from a pro-forma contents page to this version invites the reader to find what they’re looking for in the report.

Going forward, I would plan this out before writing the report, to help organise my own thinking about the contents and how to communicate it.

Thanks to Ann.

The post From Formulaic to Meaningful: Constructing a Useful “Table of Contents” Page for an Evaluation Report appeared first on Depict Data Studio.

Maybe you’d like to showcase your company’s achievements over the past year.

Maybe you’d like to celebrate your own achievements.

Infographics are a great way to visualize key points (without boring our audiences, which can happen in lengthy reports).

Back in December 2022, Sue Griffey brought her draft infographics to our weekly Office Hours.

In this blog post, you’ll see Sue Griffey’s annual infographic for her global mentoring practice, SueMentors.

You’ll also see several of Sue’s drafts. I hope this behind-the-scenes view helps you develop your own infographic.

Watch the Progression

You can watch Sue’s progression here.

This is a 7-minute segment from an hour-long Office Hours session.

Here’s what’s inside.

Sue’s Previous Infographics

First, Sue shared three examples of past years’ infographics.

Draft 1: Six Tiles of Content

Then, we talked about orientation.

Should her infographic be square?

Rectangular??

Portrait???

Landscape????

A single image?????

Several standalone images??????

A decade ago, infographics were mostly portrait. I’ll never forget Chris Lysy’s cartoon from 2014, where he joked that 2:32 aspect ratio infographics could practically be used as belts.

Nowadays, infographics can be any orientation. Ideally, we’d customize the infographic to the platform where it’s being shared.

For example, Instagram used to require squares, although you can upload square or rectangular images nowadays. And now the algorithm prefers short video Reels over images. It’s tough to keep up!

What does LinkedIn’s algorithm prefer? That’s Sue’s primary platform for connecting with others. Should her infographic be square? Rectangular?? How about both???

We considered a modular, grid-like design.

Sue already had 6 buckets of information. What a nice round number!

That means she could organize her 6 existing topics in landscape…

…and/or portrait…

…and/or as 6 individual social media posts.

In the video, you’ll see Sue’s very first draft:

Draft 2: Adjusting Colors and Adding Visuals

Next, Sue “softened all the brand colors.”

She added icons.

She added white overlays to de-emphasize the icons.

Draft 3: Focusing on Brand Blue

Sue decided to go back to “one panel of blue” (her brand color).

She added a “road map” within the TV icon.

She created a bit.ly link so that readers could learn more.

She continued softening the icons.

 “I challenged myself to take out even more words,” Sue explained.

Final Version: Smaller Boxes with More “White” Space

On New Year’s Eve Day, Sue finished her “80% is good enough” final draft.

She made the boxes smaller, which added more “white” space between the buckets of information.

Next Steps

In all her “spare” time, Sue might write a long-form blog post to elaborate on each of these 6 topics.

(She did provide additional details in a document shared publicly on Dropbox, too.)

But, as we discussed in the video, “there are endless ways to recycle content.” At some point, we have to create deadlines for ourselves and move on to the next item on our to-do lists.

Software Used: Microsoft PowerPoint

During Office Hours, another participant asked Sue which software platform she used to create her year-end infographic.

It’s PowerPoint!

Sue said, “It’s the easiest way to move photos around and to keep graphics together.”

In a previous Office Hours, we opened Canva together and browsed their year-end infographic templates. I wasn’t impressed. There were just bullet points, icons, and photos—all of which can be handled inside PowerPoint, too. Plus, Sue’s already comfortable in PowerPoint. Every new software platform has a learning curve. We can’t spend time learning them all. PowerPoint worked perfectly fine and there was no reason to switch.

“I did feel like I was moving information around and conveying things much better than I did a year ago,” Sue said. I agree. Well done!!!

Connect with Sue Griffey

You can view Sue’s infographic on LinkedIn here.

And don’t forget to connect with Sue on LinkedIn.

The post The Progression of Sue Griffey’s Year-End Infographic appeared first on Depict Data Studio.

I did.

I taught myself how to write in third-person language.

I called myself “The researcher…” instead of plain ol’ “I…”

I replaced my everyday words with “smart” synonyms. I literally paged through my GRE study guide. I tried to use as many GRE vocab words as possible.

Then, I started working in the real world.

My bosses rolled their eyes.

Another one from an academic background, they sighed. We’ll have to re-train her from scratch.

I panicked. But if I wasn’t supposed to sound like a textbook, what was I supposed to sound like???

A human!

It took me years to grasp that simple concept. I’m a person. It’s okay to sound like a person.

Nowadays, I make a living by teaching humans how to sound like humans again.

Before/After Makeovers for Common Methodology Sentences

Here are some before/after examples in case you’re still on the textbook-back-to-human journey like I was.

Please please please use these transformations in your technical reports.

I’m not so worried about peer-reviewed journal articles — that’s another battle for another day. Today, I’m focusing on your non-journal writing scenarios.

Who Designed the Survey?

• Before: A survey instrument was designed by the ABC Research Company working under the supervision of the DEF Foundation staff, and key department heads of GHI Agencies.
• After: The ABC Research Company, DEF Foundation, and GHI Agency teamed up to collect data.

Who Responded to the Survey?

• Before: A series of survey instruments were developed to administer among students in the ABC programs.
• After: We designed surveys to collect information from students in the ABC programs.

How Many Responses?

• Before: A total of 14 programs participated in the survey.
• After: Fourteen programs participated in the survey. (Remove redundancies like “a total of.”)

Or…

• Before: A total of 144 programs participated in the survey.
• After: We collected surveys from 144 programs. (Because writing out numbers at the beginning of a sentence is the worst.)

When Did You Collect Data?

• Before: Initial surveys were launched on March 7, 2018 with fieldwork continuing to accommodate the schedules of participating institutions. Data collection was cut off on April 25 to begin data processing. A total of 789 surveys were attempted, with a total of 654 surveys completed sufficiently to include in the final tabulated results. A total of 123 individuals entered their contact information for a drawing.
• After: We collected surveys in Spring 2018. We tried to collect data from 789 people, and 654 people participated, for a response rate of 83 percent—one of the highest response rates we’ve ever had on a survey.

Referencing the Just-in-Case Tables

• Before: We are providing detailed data tables with this report that shows the responses by institution.
• After: Want to view responses by institution? View the appendix on page 31.

Demographics on Respondents

• Before: Overall, undergraduate students comprise 65% of total responses and graduate students comprise the remaining 35%.
• After: Two out of three responses (65%) were from undergraduate students. The rest were from graduate students. (Getting rid of the word “comprise.)

Describing the Survey’s Topics

• Before: One way the important resources and individuals specifically helped at least two-thirds of students were giving them a good sense for the kinds of careers they could pursue with a degree.
• After: We asked students which resources were most useful. Two out of three students said that others had given them a sense of career options that they could pursue with their degree.

Summarizing the Survey’s Findings

• Before: The largest mean share of the total cost are paid for by the student or their family, who account for 50% of the total cost. Student loans are used to cover a mean of 20% of the total cost, and scholarships or other financial aid pay for 30%.
• After: For the typical student, 50% of their costs are covered by the student and their family, 30% are covered by scholarships or financial aid, and 20% are covered by student loans. (Getting rid of awkward language like “mean share” and “account for.”)

Objectively Scoring the Before/After Translations

In my gut, I know the translations are easier to read.

Let’s objectively test them.

Before: 12.1 Grade Level

The human-trying-to-sound-like-a-textbook wrote at a 12.1 grade level.

Okay, that’s not the worst I’ve seen.

The highest I’ve seen is a 36 (from a team of Ph.D. psychologists).

Can you beat a 36??? Let me know if you find any contenders. I’d love to (try to) read it.

(This screenshot is from Readable.com, which used to be a free reading level checker. It looks like they require payments nowadays, but there are plenty of free- and low-cost tools. Like good ol’ Microsoft Word! Comment below if you’ve got a favorite.)

A­fter: 9.3 Grade Level

I personally aim for grade level 6 to 8—throughout my blog posts, books, and even contracts.

I didn’t quite reach my goal. But a 9.3 isn’t horrible, either. The Readable site gives this an “A!”

Higher is not better. Lower is better.

You are a human who’s writing for humans. You are not a textbook. You are not a textbook. You are not a textbook. You are not a textbook.

How to Lower the Reading Grade Level

Try one (or more!) of these techniques:

• Shorten the sentences. An easy fix is to look at your longest sentences. Replace your commas with periods (i.e., break one long sentence into two shorter sentences).
• Shorten the paragraphs. Press the “enter” key lots and lots and lots.
• Use first-person language. Adjust the sentence structure. Change “A survey was administered…” to “The agency administered a survey” or “We administered a survey.”
• Find synonyms. This is the hardest one for me. What’s an accurate, understandable translation of calculations like standard deviation or confidence interval??? I used to pack those terms into the report’s body and hope for the best. What happened? Lots of Dusty Shelf Reports! Nowadays, I follow the 30-3-1 Approach to Reporting. I keep the methods section in the report’s body as short as possible, and I tell readers to check the appendix for more info. I don’t care if the appendix is packed with jargon. Only the technical readers are going to look there anyway, and they’ll understand the jargon.

Your Turn

Upload one of your own paragraphs into your favorite reading level checker.

How did you score?

And more importantly, how can you adjust the language to lower the reading level??

The post How to Write about Research Methods Like a Human (and Not a Textbook) appeared first on Depict Data Studio.