Show Me the Numbers
Detailed course description
Even very experienced business, financial and data analysts often create charts that are hard to read, that don’t clearly communicate the chart creator’s point, insight or story, or that unintentionally leave audiences with an incorrect understanding of the underlying data. While the fundamental principles and best practices necessary to avoid these problems aren’t complex, they’re not intuitive either and need to be learned.
Based on Stephen Few’s foundational book and updated by Nick Desbarats, Show Me the Numbers: Designing Tables and Graphs to Enlighten equips participants with the best practices and fundamental principles that enable them to easily create tables and graphs that:
Are quick and easy for audiences to understand
Make key insights and stories within data clear and obvious
Minimize the risk that audiences will be left with an incorrect understanding of the underlying data or be uncertain of how to interpret the chart
Who should attend this workshop
Anyone who creates tables and graphs as a regular part of their work, including business and financial analysts, business intelligence and data analysts, executives, project managers, software developers, user experience designers, as well as human resources, marketing, sales, operations and finance professionals. Other professionals, such as researchers, journalists, health care professionals and educators will also benefit. No prior technical or data visualization knowledge is required. Experienced data professionals will also benefit from the workshop since having deep data analysis expertise does not necessarily mean that an analyst has mastered the skills necessary to communicate data effectively to others.
Determining when to present data as a table and when to present it as a graph
Selecting the most appropriate type of graph for various situations based on the nature of the underlying data and the message to be communicated, as well as the needs, role, and level of sophistication of the audience
Making visual design choices that make graphs easier to visually process, such as minimizing visual “noise” and designing visualizations with strong visual hierarchies
Avoiding common graph design mistakes such as choosing inappropriate quantitative scales and misusing color
Designing tables for easy visual consumption
Handling common data visualization challenges such as visualizing missing data, data that spans a very wide range, and large numbers of values
Techniques for making the key insights and stories within visualizations more obvious to audiences
Topics not covered
This is not a graphic design course. The emphasis is on designing highly functional tables and graphs for audiences that are clear, useful, and easy to read, and that are unlikely to be misinterpreted. The course does not address creating graphs that are artistically beautiful or eye-catching (but often less functional).