How to Effectively Present Quotes

Posted on June 19, 2013 by Stephanie Evergreen — No Comments ↓

When it comes to qualitative data, we have far fewer dataviz tools at our disposal. Another time, promise, we’ll get into word clouds and what Stuart Henderson thinks of them. Today, let’s tackle a more common method of displaying qualitative data – quotes. In reports, quotes are usually shown something like this: Usually, there are lots of these, italicized, in a row. The reader is expected to want to slog through each quote and pull out the parts most pertinent to the point the evaluation report author is trying to convey. It isn’t clear which part of the quote is…

Tagged with: data visualization, display, evaluation, interviews, qualitative data, quotes, reports, slideshows
Posted in color, Communicating Findings, font

Evaluation Swag

Posted on June 5, 2013 by Stephanie Evergreen — 7 Comments ↓

Conference season has begun (does it ever really end?) and I’m thinking again about the swag. You know, those freebies given away by vendors or fellow evaluators. I am personally not usually excited about the heaps of easily breakable plastic crap, but if done well evaluation swag can make a strong impression. I once chose the swag for the group of evaluators I worked with – for distribution at a conference where we needed to promote eval among no evaluators. So I picked transparent post-it notes, like these, with our logo across the top. Practical. Handy. Representing this grand metaphor…

Tagged with: conference, giveaway, swag
Posted in Evaluation, Uncategorized

Your Brain on Slideshows

Posted on May 22, 2013 by Stephanie Evergreen — No Comments ↓

Here’s what happens to audience brains when presenters speak while showing text-heavy slides. Their working memory gets overloaded. Working memory is that part of the cognition system where we contemplate information, wrangle with it, try to digest it. But working memory has limits on its cognitive load. It can only handle so much (not much, as it turns out). Want to see for yourself? Try this little game. While it isn’t the same as sitting in a text-heavy presentation, it recreates a similar environment where our brains are trying to keep track of too many things at once. Created by…

Easy Dot Plots in Excel

Posted on May 8, 2013 by Stephanie Evergreen — 1 Comment ↓

Last month I was at a Naomi Robbins’ workshop and she was pretty emphatic that dot plots are the better method of visualization, as compared to bar charts. The reason goes back to Cleveland’s early experiments on visual perception, which found that humans most accurately interpret locations on line, when those lines share a common axis. Even more accurate than length, which would be a bar chart. The problem is that most of us use Excel and dot plots are not a default chart option. On Naomi’s inspiration, I used a little elbow grease to make it work. Here are…

Tagged with: Cleveland, dot plot, Excel, Naomi Robbins, the best way to graph
Posted in charts, Communicating Findings

Guest Post: 5 Tips for Creating Effective Visual Summaries for your Reports

Posted on April 24, 2013 by Stephanie Evergreen — 3 Comments ↓

Sample visual summary created for Big Brothers Big Sisters 2013 Youth Outcomes Report (View the full report at: www.bbbs.org).

Oh yeah – it’s my first ever guest post! I’m so happy to host Elissa – she does fantastic work. -Stephanie My name is Elissa Schloesser with Visual Voice, I’m a freelance graphic designer specializing in communicating complex information and ideas. I work specifically with mission-based organization, and partner with a number of evaluators to create communication pieces that summarize evaluation findings for use with funders, potential supporters, and to be more broadly shared with the public. Creating a visual summary for your report is similar to writing its executive summary, but uses visuals and graphics to aid in the…

Tagged with: Elissa, evaluation, infographic, reporting survey results, Scholesser, survey, visual summary
Posted in Communicating Findings

Reviewing Datawrapper

Posted on April 10, 2013 by Stephanie Evergreen — 1 Comment ↓

Have you tried out Datawrapper? The Guardian uses it for their data visualization reporting (learned after reading through lengthy but amusing comments and semi-argument on Few’s blog) so I figured it was worth checking out. Datawrapper is primarily used to embed graphics in a website, like this. Cool! There are clear advantages over a more static graph produced in something like Excel: embedability, interactivity, and vectorization (i.e., a static version of the picture can be infinitely resized and it won’t lose it’s clarity, which is great for display in something like a slideshow). Also, and importantly, Datawrapper is free and open source.…

Posted in charts, Communicating Findings

Who Can Do Dataviz (or How a Field Evolves)

Posted on March 27, 2013 by Stephanie Evergreen — 10 Comments ↓

Wow, the action in the dataviz/tech world this past week has been awesome! A female programmer at a Python (that’s a programming language also used for dataviz) conference was fired after tweeting about the sexist jokes she was hearing from a largely white young male crowd, and Tableau’s new release seemed to spark both a long blog review by a frustrated Stephen Few and an interesting Twitter conversation that included comments like the right question is “should a datavis expert use Excel?” My answer: Probably no. Ouch. Who knew dataviz could mess with my emotions so much? Well, I’ll start…

Tagged with: charts, data visualization, datavis, dataviz, Excel, graphs
Posted in Uncategorized

Successful Webinar Presenting

Posted on March 13, 2013 by Stephanie Evergreen — No Comments ↓

I host or give roughly 70 webinars a year, most over with AEA and others right here at Evergreen Data. Here’s what I have seen that makes for a good webinar presentation experience (as opposed to presenting the same content in person). Use a faster pace. In face-to-face presentations or classrooms, the charismatic presenter (that’s you, believe it or not) carries most of the burden of engagement. That engagement is significantly reduced in many webinar platforms, where the bulk of the focus rests on the slides. Thus, delivery at the old 2-minutes-per-slide pace is a surefire way to send the audience…

Tagged with: elearning, presentation, webinars
Posted in Communicating Findings, slideshows

Presenting Graphs with the Slow Reveal

Posted on February 13, 2013 by Stephanie Evergreen — 5 Comments ↓

Screenshot of adding animation to graph in PowerPoint

Over here I talked about how important it is that we gradually introduce components of complex graphics – one-at-a-time – so as not to overwhelm the visual field and working memory of our audience members. We don’t want to slam our content in their faces all at once. It let’s the audience read ahead and only half-listen. It can also be so much information at one time that audience members check out entirely. Here’s how to use the same Slow Reveal technique on graphs, which I learned from the smart folks over at BrightCarbon. First, insert your graph into PowerPoint.…

Tagged with: animation, charts, Excel, graphs, PowerPoint
Posted in charts, Communicating Findings, slideshows