I wish that every awesome data viz presentation ended with each coworker blasting a confetti popper over your head. The reality is that when your data viz sucks, you know it loud and clear. When it sings, you often can’t tell. This post is not going to provide an anatomy…
You might have landed here because you thought this was going to be a post full of snarky commentary on mediocre graphs. It isn’t. In fact, I’m not going to include a single data viz. Because what makes a data viz suck or sing isn’t just about its outward…
I was vacationing lake-side with my family, awake at 3am with an idea for a brand new business. I just couldn’t shake it and get back to sleep. I found a stack of rainbow colored post it notes in the kitchen drawer of the Airbnb and by the time…
Everyone wants a dashboard. But making a GOOD dashboard can be as hard as snagging a selfie with Beyonce. The friction I see most often is because the dashboard software is confusing to use. It’ll get you feeling like you’re groping around in the dark for the light switch.
When people aren’t 100% sure you are talking to them, they ignore you. (Heck, when I’m jogging and the dude in the car is clearly talking to me, I still ignore him.) You want your audience to immediately see themselves in your data and how that data story is relevant…
You can tell when someone is getting their data viz eye well-honed because they start asking where ELSE can I include visuals that will better explain my work? That’s Sue. She had grown comfortable with high-impact, story-telling charts in the Results section of her reporting but…
Meg, an Academy student, sent me a great question for our monthly Office Hours call: How do I replicate this? Pretty cool chart, right? It comes from Global Web Index, who put out tons of relevant data in interesting graphs.
I am a data nerd. I grew up, professionally speaking, designing studies, collecting data, and trying to get people to make use of the analysis and results. After I married a graphic designer, I realized that no one was going to pay attention to my amazing, glorious, wonderful data if my…
Have you ever accidentally taken one step too far down the internet rabbit hole? This has happened to me more than once when I’m trying to google the solution to why my chart isn’t working. I click into a Q & A forum that teases the answer – but the…
A google image search of “data scorecard” turns up these results: Full, just FULL, of stoplight color schemes. Friends don’t let friends use stoplight color schemes. This is the tiny hill I am willing to die on. So Friend, let’s talk about why this has got…
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