Have you ever spotted a graph that you know is bad (it might even be one that you made) – but you just can’t quite put your finger on what would make it better?

I’ll tell you why.

It’s about the little details in the way the chart is formatted.

It’s easy to miss the little things but as soon as I point them out to you, they’ll be so obvious and you’ll never unsee them and you’ll always know exactly how to make every one of your charts a billion times better.

The small things add up to a more engaging data visualization.

I’ve written up all those little formatting details you need to attend to in a free tool you should download now and distribute to your whole team.

Snag the Data Visualization Checklist

Add your email and I’ll send you a handy PDF with all the checkpoints in one spot.

I’ve so totally got your back. Over here, I posted a free 1-hour training on the Checklist.

You’ll learn how to interpret each checkpoint and what high-scoring graphs look like (I feature the stellar work of students in my Data Visualization Academy).

Come get that attention to detail that makes you skilled at data visualization.

Refer to the checklist when you’re constructing your next data visualization so that what you produce rocks worlds. Use it to gauge the effectiveness of graphs you’ve already made and adjust places where you don’t score full points.

What’s in the Checklist?

The Data Visualization Checklist is a compilation of 23 guidelines on how graphs should be formatted to best show the story in your data.

The 23 guidelines are broken down into 5 sections: Text, Arrangement, Color, Lines, and Overall. It’s been rigorously tested for validity and reliability and road-tested by thousands of workshop participants who have the practical day-to-day realities of reporting data to decision-makers and the pragmatic needs of our audiences.

I also included a data visualization anatomy chart on the last page of the checklist to illustrate key concepts and point out terminology in case you need more support.

We have seen thousands of people use the checklist to generate data stories that shine.

Here’s what Nathan emailed me, out of the blue:

I want to sincerely thank you for your dataviz guides, because a brand new client specifically called out one of my visualizations (inspired by your guides) in our proposal as the reason we were picked.thank you for elevating my dataviz game.- Nathan

Time for you to elevate your dataviz game, too.

Get the checklist now and you’ll have better graphs within the hour.

In the interactive version of this checklist, you can upload an image of your graph and walk through each checkpoint, rating yourself. Should you score low anywhere, I’ll point you to advice on how to improve.

Nothing to lose, everything to gain.