508 Compliance became A Thing to Deal With in 2000 and 15 years later people still have questions about how it works. I get questions about how to be 508 compliant in nearly every workshop. 508 compliance essentially means that people who produce things on the web for any federal…
My main rule of thumb is that you can show measures of variability in your graph so long as you can explain what they mean in an extremely concise subtitle. Translating scientific jargon for a lay audience may be the most challenging aspect of communicating data effectively.
Humans in the western culture tend to see things that trend upward as positive and lines that trend downward as bad. But what if bad is good? And not like my college boyfriend. But in the sense that a decrease is a good thing. Let’s use the example of weight…
Slopegraphs are a newer graph type with powerhouse capabilities. They rely on Excel’s line graphing feature but they don’t necessarily have to show change over time. Slopegraphs play into our ability to judge slope fairly well. For this reason, they are perfect for highlighting the story of how just one…
Dear Good Housekeeping, I needed a few new appliances. My old Shark vacuum cleaner bit the dust for the second time and in the same week my washing machine started eating all my towels. So I was interested in the spread from your Good Housekeeping Research Institute, reporting on its expert tests…
I have the coolest gigs. Every year I get to work with the Eleanor Chelimsky Forum keynote speaker to develop a slidedeck that rocks the house. This year, the keynote speaker was Abe Wandersman. I’d seen Abe present in the past and… let’s just say I knew…
Anna Harms knows when the jig is up. Part-way through my 1 day workshop on Presenting Data Effectively, she knew what change had to happen (and fast). So fast, she didn’t hesitate to walk right up to me and say, “We are working so hard on our reports but there’s…
I realize it’s completely taboo to write about current events six months after they’ve happen but I DON’T CARE. One of my favorite events of the year is watching the enhanced version of the State of the Union. Not the regular view – the enhanced view. One side of the…
Most of the time, I think radar graph are deployed wrong. They are designed to show percentages along several categories – like a bar graph could – but the axis are distributed around a central point, such that the percentages link together and create a shape. Choosing a radar graph,…
Wherever I travel, without fail, the people who are most resistant to making the necessary changes to present data more effectively are academics. I wish I was kidding. After all, I used to be one. Some of my best friends are academics. Even the young ones who are on…
