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…
Big Picture
The Most Important Question in Data Visualization
What’s your point? Seriously, that’s the most important question to ask when creating a data visualization. And its the first thing I ask a client who sends me data for redesign. What’s your point? The answers drive nearly everything about visualizing that data. Here’s how that conversation often goes: Client:…
Stop Asking if the Slides are Available
The thing is, if the presenter has done a great job, you really don’t want the slides. No really, you don’t. A long long time ago, Garr Reynolds taught me that if someone can look at your slideshow and tell all the things you are going to say, there’s no…
Data-Driven Decisions in a Fortune 500
More and more, organizations are on board with the idea of becoming “data-driven.” Collecting data on key indicators is a big step ahead from where many organizations used to be. But being able to interpret that data and share it with others in an intelligent way is equally as important…
How a Dashboard Changes the Conversation
Presenting data effectively changes the kinds of conversations that can happen inside organizations. Better presentations shape an improved culture of decision-making. Let me tell you about a recent example of this. Late 2012 I got a call from an evaluation officer who was working at the Walton Family…
Numbers, Guts, & Culture: How Data Visualization Changes the Conversation
Numbers have power, if you have the courage to use them powerfully. Take these two stories from opposite ends of the 20th Century. The first story is about a man in a steel mill. The second is about the crash of a giant. Charles Schwab had a mill manager whose people weren’t…
Evergreen Evolving
I took a deep breath and I did it. I changed my Twitter handle. This is a big deal. Things sure are evolving around here. It goes like this: I fell into the field of evaluation. Like most people on the planet (including my parents), I had no idea what…
An Incomplete List of Females in Data Visualization
I rewrote this post 4 times, in an effort to give it a calm and professional tone. And then I thought “Ah fuck it, this is my blog and I can say whatever I want.” I’m writing this post because I just listened to an interview about data visualization. It…
More Images: The Dissertation Breakdown
At this time last year I was putting the final touches on my dissertation manuscript format and preparing for my defense. I looked at the extent of graphic design use in evaluation reports. I gathered about 200 summative evaluation reports from the repository at Informal Science Education, trained…
When Not to Use Data Driven Decision Making
In 1993 two artists set out to make a data-driven painting. I’m not kidding. They contracted with a well respected research firm, ran a call center in the midwest, and used telephone interviews to gather opinions about the type of artistic content and composition people preferred. The poll used a…