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.

What do you use PowerPoint for?

You might use PowerPoint to:

1. Create slides to accompany a presentation (i.e., you’re getting ready to speak at a conference, meeting, or other in-person or virtual event); and/or
2. Create documents that someone can read on their own (i.e., when you’ll circulate the slides as an email attachment before or after a meeting).

I talked with Boris Hristov on the World of Presentations podcast about this distinction.

Sometimes, we need to use PowerPoint (or Google Slides, or Keynote) for presentations.

Other times, we need to use PowerPoint for standalone docs like email attachments or printed handouts.

Without a clear distinction, we run into Death by PowerPoint — presentation slides that are as dense as reports. Or, reports that are as sparse as presentations.

Boris is the founder of presentation agency 356labs and a PowerPoint MVP. Boris has years of experience as a trainer, mentor, and consultant and has trained and coached not just students, but also people from the IT, sales, marketing and management fields in topics ranging from presentation skills and storytelling through the psychology behind slide design.

You can watch our conversation or read the highlights below.

Listen to the Podcast Episode

You can listen here:

Watch Our Conversation

Or, watch our conversation on YouTube:

How to Differentiate Between Slidedocs and Slidedecks

Here are the highlights from the conversation.

In this episode, you’ll learn how to differentiate between slidedocs and slidedecks when using presentation software like PowerPoint or Google Slides.

Slidedecks are presentation slides that accompany the speaker, and they’ll generally have as little text as possible and plenty of high-quality images.

Slidedocs are standalone documents that just happen to be made in PowerPoint instead of Word. Since they’re meant to be reports, they’ll need more full sentences.

You’ll learn about five specific ways to design better slidedecks and slidedocs:

1. Titles and Headings
2. Amount of Text
3. Font Size
4. Visuals
5. Length

Titles and Headings

The first difference we should see between slidedecks and slidedocs is the wording.

In slidedocs, I recommend takeaway titles, which have the “so what?” directly in the headings, subheadings, and graph titles.

In slidedecks, I used to say that topical titles were okay because the presenter would explain the “so what?” with their voice.  But, nowadays, I recommend using takeaway titles for both formats (for presentations and documents). Our audiences are busy, and I can’t risk confusing them.

Amount of Text

In slidedecks, we should aim for as little text as possible. No full paragraphs. No full sentences. Key phrases only. The speaker fills in the information with his or her voice.

In slidedocs, I recommend using full sentences and paragraphs. This is a report, after all. Our readers need to understand the content on their own; there won’t be a presenter explaining the information to them. Our report just happens to be made in PowerPoint.

Font Size

Slidedecks need large font (size 18+ for body text). For in-person presentations, the text needs to be big enough for people in the verrrry back of the room to see it. For virtual presentations, the text needs to be big enough for people to read it from their phone screens.

Slidedocs are essentially just reports, so they need report-size font (~size 11 for body text).

Visuals

I recommend storytelling graphs for both slidedecks and slidedocs.

“The term data storytelling is used different ways,” you’ll hear me say in the podcast. Storytelling graphs have an intentional dark/light contrast, accompanied by takeaway graph titles.

Our brains can’t help but notice dark colors, so choose one key point that you want your audience to focus on, and make that darker.

For slidedecks, I recommend just one graph per slide to focus your audience. That way, the audience members are actually looking at the right graph as you talk about it. If we put too many graphs on the screen at once, we risk losing their attention.

Length

When we’re designing slidedocs, we typically need to stay within page limits. There might be written or unwritten rules about keeping the report to 3, 5, or 10 pages, for example.

When we’re designing slidedecks, we should ignore “rules” about slide limits. Use as many slides as you need! In the podcast, you’ll hear me explain that “You’re clicking through [the slides] at a faster pace, but you’re not slurring your speech or talking really, really fast to get through everything.” You’re showing less per slide, and keeping the pace nice and quick.

Quick Dataviz Wins for Presentations

Finally, in the podcast, Boris asked me for data visualization tips.

I shared several Quick Wins that benefit our busy audiences. “People are very hard working, they’re very highly educated, I think we just don’t have the time,” I explained. “These are some tips to help speed up [the audience’s] comprehension knowing they live in a busy world.”

Quick tips include:

1. Round decimal places to the nearest whole number;
2. Avoid ALL CAPS; and
3. Left-align text instead of centering.

Dataviz Book Recommendations

Boris asked me for book recommendations. Here are the books I mentioned:

• Storytelling with Data by Cole Nussbaumer
• How Charts Lie by Alberto Cairo
• Presentation Zen Design by Garr Reynolds

Connect with Boris Hristov

• World of Presentations Podcast: https://356labs.com/podcast/
• Twitter: @brshristov
• LinkedIn: @brshristov
• Present to Succeed Conference: https://www.presenttosucceed.com/

Your Turn

Do you use PowerPoint for slidedecks, slidedocs, or both?

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

Want to make sure your audience is engaged?

No, those 10-minute Q&As at the end of a presentation don’t count as adequate engagement. Let’s notch up our engagement!

In this blog post, you’ll learn about the “Choose Your Own Adventure” method for engaging our audiences during presentations.

In March 2021, I was speaking at the Nonprofit Technology Network’s conference, 21NTC, and I used this technique.

I started to write a blog post with screenshots, but I really want to show you how this works.

In this video, you’ll see:

1. A brief demo of the Choose Your Own Adventure method
2. A behind-the-scenes tour of my slides
3. A discussion of the caveats so you can decide when to use this method

Watch the Video

The Choose Your Own Adventure Method

As you saw in the video, the Choose Your Own Adventure technique puts our audience in the driver’s seat.

Here’s what the presentation looks and feels like for our audience members.

Step 1: Show the Table of Contents Slide

First, we show them a Table of Contents slide, which has an overview of all the topics we might cover.

I tell the audience that there’s tons to learn about this topic, but we’ll only have time to cover a few techniques during our short time together.

My 21NTC presentation was 60 minutes long, so we had time for 3 techniques.

Step 2: Ask Attendees to Vote for their Preferred Topics

Then, the audience members vote and help us prioritize which topic(s) we’ll cover.

For example, in my 21NTC presentation in March, I simply asked the attendees to type their votes into the chat window.

You’ll need to make some small talk while audience members are typing in their votes.

Sometimes, there might be a 15- to 30-second delay between us and the audience members. I’ve given virtual talks on a bunch of different conference platforms (Whova, etc.), and most of them have a slight delay. We’ll need to factor that in, too. More small talk.

In the video, you’ll see what I did for my 21NTC presentation. While the audience members were voting, I simply let them know that they could download an ebook to learn all 10 techniques.

Step 3: Click on their Preferred Topics on the Table of Contents Slide

Finally, the links propel us to the correct place in the presentation.

If attendees want to learn about Color Blindness, for instance, then I would click on the Color Blindness section of this slide. The links fast-forward us to that segment of slides.

For example, our Table of Contents slide might be on slide 5, and we can use the links to fast-forward to slide 50.

Step 4: Discuss that Topic & Show the Table of Contents Slide Again

At the end of the Color Blindness section, we see the Table of Contents slide again.

The presenter clicks on the second topic that the audience members wanted to talk about, and the links propel us to that segment of the presentation.

And on and on.

I often conclude with a case study. We’ll discuss the case studies and their links in a moment.

A Behind-the-Scenes Tour of My PowerPoint Slides

In the video, you’ll see exactly which buttons to click on to create a Choose Your Own Adventure presentation.

Links on the Table of Contents Slide

Here’s how you can add links to your PowerPoint slides:

1. Click on the icon or text box where you want to create a link.
2. Go to the Insert tab at the top of the screen.
3. Go to the Link button.
4. Click the down-arrow.
5. Insert a link.
6. In the pop-up window, choose Place in this Document.
7. You can scroll through your list of numbered slides and choose one.
8. Click ok.

That’s it!

When you click the icon or text box during your live presentation, the links will take you and your audience to the appropriate segment of your presentation.

Invisible Links to the Case Studies

Sometimes I end my presentations with case studies. These case studies give the attendees a chance to put their new knowledge into use.

For example, at the 21NTC conference, I prepared three case studies in advance. I had a beginner, intermediate, and advanced case study. I knew we’d only have time to cover one of the case studies.

As shown in the video, I simply added links to the case studies to the Table of Contents slide.

There are invisible rectangles on my Table of Contents slide. The top rectangle is a link to the beginner case study, the middle rectangle is a link to the intermediate case study, and the bottom rectangle is a link to the advanced case study.

Caveats

Wondering whether this technique is right for you?

Should you continue giving a “regular” linear presentation? Or should you try a “Choose Your Own Adventure” non-linear presentation??

Here are two factors to consider:

• This is an advanced technique. You need to be an expert in your topic area and have tons of presentation experience. You have to be nimble enough to speak about any of your topics in any order, and to adjust the time spent on each topic on the fly.
• This technique only works when the topics can be presented in any order. In my accessibility presentation, I could discuss topic 1, 2, and 3. Or, I could discuss 1, 3, and 2. The techniques aren’t sequential; they can truly be taught in any order. Make sure your topics can be delivered in any order, too.

Your Turn

After you try this, get in touch! Share tips of your own so we can learn from each other.

In March 2021, I was speaking with GEDIs about dataviz tricks for presentations. (The GEDI program is the Graduate Education Diversity Internship within the American Evaluation Association.)

I was scrolling through my slides, and someone asked how I created these “sections” to organize my content.

Adding sections to PowerPoint has been a gamechanger for me personally. They help me stay organized behind the scenes, which helps my audience, too. An organized presenter = an organized presentation = a happy audience that can learn from us headache-free.

Watch the 7-Minute Tutorial on Sections

I started to write a blog post with screenshots about sections… but that felt impossible. I wanted to show you how sections work, so I recorded you a tutorial.

What’s inside:

1. A demo of what sections are
2. How to add them
3. How I use them to hide topics
4. How I use them to re-order topics

What Are PowerPoint Sections?

Sections help us organize our slides into meaningful groups, categories, chunks, buckets, or chapters of a presentation.

In the video, you’ll see what they look like.

Can you spot the words above some of the slides?

Our audience won’t see the sections. They’re for us, the presenters.

How to Add Sections

It’s easy to add new sections to a presentation.

Here’s how:

• I like to be in Slide Sorter view first. (The birds-eye-view of the presentation where you can view all the miniature slides.)
• Decide which slide is going to start the new section. Click on that slide to activate it.
• Right-click and Add Section.
• In the pop-up window, give your section a name. I use names like Introduction, Case Study, Conclusion, etc.

That’s it!!!

How to Use Sections to Hide Topics

I like to keep all my slides for a given workshop within a single file.

While prepping for upcoming talks, I go through the full file – all 900+ slides! – and choose which sections I’ll talk about.

I might cover Sections A, B, and C for one group.

I might cover Sections A, D, and E for another group.

I might add Sections F, G, and H as brand new topics for another group.

(For private trainings, I review the group’s materials ahead of time and hold some planning calls to figure out which sections are going to be the best use of our time together.)

As I’m deciding which sections to include, I simply hide and unhide the slides. In the video, you’ll learn how to hide and unhide slides.

(Yes, you can hide and unhide slides without having any sections. I personally like using sections so I can think about an entire category of slides that should be shown or hidden.)

How to Use Sections to Re-Order Topics

I definitely recommend outlining your presentation in a document or spreadsheet before making all your slides.

Our outlines don’t need to be 100% finished before we make our slides. I almost always make changes along the way.

One common change is re-ordering topics. I might envision covering topics A, B, and C, in that order. But later, as I’m designing the slides, I might decide to cover topics A, C, and B.

In the video, you’ll learn how to drag and drop entire sections to re-order them.

Your Turn

Let me know how you’ve used sections to keep your content organized!

The default: The data just sits there inside a Dusty Shelf Report.  

But what if your data could actually inform real-life decisions?  

I recently sat down with Vivian Jefferson from Loudoun County Public Schools, a growing district in the Washington, D.C. metro area.   

Vivian and I are both members of the same Facebook group (a community for everyone taking data visualization training with me).  

A couple weeks ago, Vivian mentioned that her graphs had been featured on the news (!!!).  

The topic was school reopening plans for the 2020-2021 academic year. Vivian and her colleagues had collected surveys from parents and teachers to gauge their opinions.  

Watch the Conversation Below 

Vivian and I talked about the 52,000 surveys that her office designed, administered, cleaned, and visualized within a two-week timeframe.  

She’ll teach you how they visualized the data, making sure to have detailed reports for technical audiences and a storytelling slideshow for a school board meeting with hundreds of attendees.  

And, she’ll tell you how her graphs ended up being featured inside a news story for an even broader audience. 

About Vivian Jefferson 

Vivian works in the research office of Loudoun County Public Schools in Virginia. The district is one of the largest in the state, with 83,000 students and 94 school facilities (and counting–they open a new school almost every year!). They average about 2,500 new students each year.  

The research office is a four-person team consisting of a program analyst, data analyst, office supervisor, and Vivian, who manages surveys.  

How Vivian’s Role Has Shifted Due to COVID-19 

Vivian noted that the data requests have been more urgent and bigger in size as the leadership tries to make decisions quickly. Loudoun County Public Schools closed in early March but was able to implement some online learning using existing tools.  

“The leadership wanted to monitor how that was going: Are students logging in, are they engaged? What we found was that the tools that we had couldn’t necessarily collect all of that data. We could tell how many students were logging in, but not if that were completing the activities or for how long they were logged in,” said Vivian.  

Vivian and her colleagues have been doing more surveys to try and find where people stand and what their concerns are.   

Vivian also said that the biggest impact she feels has been on what they haven’t been able to do.  

In the spring, they usually conduct assessments to see how students have progressed. They haven’t been able to do that, so they don’t know if the interventions they had in place worked. They also don’t know what the student needs and strengths are going into the next school year.  

“We won’t have the whole last quarter of data to be able to compare with previous years. Anytime we see trend data for 2020, it’s going to have an asterisk that it’s showing only three-quarters of the data. And I think that’s probably happening all over with school districts across the country,” Vivian said.  

Designing the School Reopening Surveys 

Let’s dive into the survey that was featured on the news. 

School leaders requested a “survey of families and staff to see where their comfort level is with these three models that we’ve developed, what they’re concerned about and their needs are.” The school system was considering three models: 100% in-person, 100% virtual, or a hybrid. 

Vivian’s office designed and administered two surveys: one for parents and one for all school-based staff, such as administrators, office staff, and other professionals in addition to teachers. 

They reviewed similar surveys from other school districts, and then added questions specific to their own county. 

Parents were asked about their spring 2020 online learning experience; which of the three reopening models they preferred; whether they had computer access for distance learning; and more. 

Staff were asked whether they received the support and resources they needed in spring 2020; whether they would be comfortable being inside a classroom with physical distancing measures in place; and whether they were comfortable taking their temperatures and wearing face coverings. 

Then, the surveys were translated into Spanish, and links were emailed to parents and staff, and further promoted on social media.  

Collecting the Survey Responses 

Vivian said, “We knew we were going to get a lot interest in it because it’s such a hot topic. We do a school climate survey every spring for staff and parents. The parent survey usually gets 11,000 to 12,000 responses. This survey had 46,000 parents respond. And then about 6,000 staff responded (usually only a couple thousand respond). It was huge.”  

Vivian’s office designed the surveys, collected 52,000 responses, and compiled the data into reports and a slideshow within just two weeks. 

Visualizing the Data 

Vivian color-coded the data to make the categories easier to navigate. For example, they consistently used teal for elementary schools, orange for middle schools, gold for high schools, and blue for the county. 

Vivian also drew attention to key findings by making pieces of the visuals darker or lighter: 

Vivian also said that, “On the titles of the slides, I tried to pull out what the main finding was, to highlight what they should be looking for.” 

The Reporting Model 

I personally love the reporting model that Vivian’s office followed. 

They developed two detailed reports plus a slideshow with key findings. And, the news story provided a high-level overview. There’s something available for every type of audience. 

Vivian and her colleagues have evolved their communications strategy. “When I first started there 14 years ago, we were doing the full Dusty Shelf Reports.  Over the past few years, we’ve realized that our decision makers need data to make policy and decisions within a few weeks. They don’t have time to wait for a year long, in-depth program evaluation. We’ve been kind of gearing up for a fast response model of reporting anyway, but this was really fast.” 

Two 13-Page Technical Reports 

Vivian’s office shared detailed results within two 13-page reports, one for the parent survey and one for the staff survey. 

These reports contained tables of both quantitative and qualitative survey results. 

The Slideshow 

Vivian and her colleagues also developed a slideshow, which would be presented at a school board meeting. The slideshow was viewed by school board members, administrators, staff, and parents. 

The News Story 

Finally, the news article and 90-second video provided a high-level overview of the survey results. 

Vivian said she was very surprised to see that someone on a Facebook group she’s a member of linked to the new story and said, “LCPS was on the news today!”  

“I thought, ‘I wonder what they said?’ And I clicked on it, and watched it, and I almost fell out of my chair, literally. They had used the graphs from my presentation!” she said.  

The news station used several of Vivian’s graphs, even enhancing one by circling one set of columns that they wanted to draw attention to.  

The news story combined the survey’s quantitative data with audio clips from the public comment portion of the school meeting: 

“I knew that people would be looking at the report, but I thought mainly like the school board, people who tuned in to watch the school board meeting,” Vivian mentioned. “But I didn’t realize that people would take anything from it and use it in a different way.” 

Reactions from the School Board and Parents 

And, a couple days after the school board meeting, Vivian was out shopping in a store and overheard a couple parents discussing statistics from the report. 

The school board also gave Vivian’s office good feedback on the data. 

Loudoun County Public Schools had considered three models for the 2020-2021 academic year: 

1. 100% in-person 

2. 100% virtual 

3. A hybrid model 

The school system opted for the hybrid model, in which half the students would be in school at a time. Parents will also have the option to opt-out and follow 100% virtual learning.  

Note: Vivian reached out to let us know that “as typical of the times we are in, this week the school board and superintendent changed the reopening plan to be all distance learning at first, with a phased approach to the hybrid model. You can see their revised plan here: Revised Plan for 2020-21.  

Learn More about Vivian’s Survey 

The survey results were shared publicly on the school board’s site.  

• The slides that were presented at the school board meeting in June 2020.
• The tables from the parent survey.
• The tables from the staff survey.

Read the WUSA 9 story, Loudoun County School Board votes on reopening plan, and watch the 1.5-minute video where Vivian’s work was featured.

Connect with Vivian Jefferson on LinkedIn.

Your Turn 

Comment below. Let us know which part of the conversation resonated with you the most.