Search
DVR TIG Week: Ann K. Emery and Stephanie Evergreen on the Data Visualization Checklist
2 Comments ·
Posted by Sheila Robinson in Data Visualization and Reporting
Hey friends! We are Ann Emery, Co-Chair of the DVRTIG, and Stephanie Evergreen, Founder of the DVRTIG – two evaluators who are crazy about data visualization.
“I love your examples, but how do I know what I should do next time I’m creating a graph?” We heard comments like this when we talked with evaluators about good graph design. We saw that evaluators had thirst for better graphs and a clear understanding of why better graphs were necessary, but they lacked efficient guidance on how, exactly, to make a graph better.
Rad Resource: Introducing the Data Visualization Checklist
Take the guesswork out of your next graph. Download our 25-item checklist for clear guidelines on graph text, color, arrangement, lines, and overall messaging. Read about what makes a memorable graph title (spoiler alert: it’s not “Figure 1”). Learn how to arrange your bar chart based on whether your categories are nominal or ordinal. Decide which default settings in your software program to keep and which ones to toss.
Not familiar with the terminology? The last page is a Data Visualization Anatomy Chart. Watch that example’s before-and-after remake in Stephanie’s training on Ignite presentations.
Hot Tip: How can you use the Checklist?
Get in the habit of producing several drafts before sharing final graphs with your clients. Draft, score, edit, repeat!
In this example, we printed an existing graph (page 6 here) in both color and black and white to see how the final chart looked for viewers. We scribbled notes all over the graph and the checklist as we scored. Overall, the graph earned 91% of the possible points—just above the cutoff that enables viewers to read, interpret, and retain the content.
Cool Trick: What’s next for the Checklist?
We are publishing examples to illustrate the 25 items as well as before-and-after remakes. Check out the growing galleries at annkemery.com/tag/data-visualization-checklist/ and stephanieevergreen.com/tag/data-visualization-checklist/. And we’re taking requests: Which checklist items would you like examples for?
We’re also hoping to present the checklist at the American Evaluation Association’s annual conference in October. Let’s high five there! Please please please can you take a picture of your existing data visualization, apply the checklist, and then take another picture? Tweet your redesigns to @annkemery and @evalu8r. Email them to annkemery@gmail.com and stephanie@evergreenevaluation.com. Fold them into paper airplanes and fly them to us! Send your redesigns and show people how awesome you are!
Big thanks to our pilot reviewers: James Coyle, Amy Germuth, Chris Lysy, Johanna Morariu, Jon Schwabish, David Shellard, Rob Simmon, Kate Tinworth, Jeff Wasbes, and Trina Willard.
The American Evaluation Association is celebrating Data Visualization and Reporting (DVR) Week with our colleagues in the DVR Topical Interest Group. The contributions all this week to aea365 come from DVR TIG members. Do you have questions, concerns, kudos, or content to extend this aea365 contribution? Please add them in the comments section for this post on the aea365 webpage so that we may enrich our community of practice. Would you like to submit an aea365 Tip? Please send a note of interest to aea365@eval.org. aea365 is sponsored by the American Evaluation Association and provides a Tip-a-Day by and for evaluators.
No tags
p2i: Stephanie Evergreen on Michael Quinn Patton’s Fab Five Reboot
2 Comments ·
Posted by Dan McDonnell in Uncategorized
Hey there! I’m Stephanie Evergreen, AEA’s eLearning Initiatives Director and the lead of the Potent Presentations Initiative. We merged those two things in a project to revamp five slides from five of AEA’s eStudy presenters. This month I’ll share the reboot we did to Michael Quinn Patton’s slides.
Michael is somewhat predispositioned toward use, so his slides have always been a visual support, a way to make the material more useful to the audience. This redesign was about making them better reflect Michael and the nature of his content.
Before
After
Michael’s slides needed to be made at least a little more consistent with the design choices in his book, Utilization-Focused Evaluation. This is why I brought in the orange color. Then I applied that orange color to the key words in the whole quote. I put the other text in gray so as not to compete with the orange (black would be too dark). I switched to a condensed font that’s still readable to give more white space on the slide and make it feel less overwhelming. And speaking of readable, I normally would argue for removing text when a slide contains this much but since this is the actual definition, it needs to be conveyed word-for-word. So I broke lines into conceptual chunks of text & animated each so they appear as he speaks. This way, what people can read at a glance will match what Michael says. Together these strategies make the slide easier to digest.
Before
After
For bullet-heavy slides like this, one good strategy is to break up the content so there’s just one bullet per slide. But as I was reading this slide content, I realized the relationship between these bullet points. The first bullet was providing a definition of sorts and the rest were illustrating how an evaluator enacts that definition. This was the perfect type of content for an overarching visual metaphor. The first After slide introduced the overarching definition and a picture of a piñata. Then the slides that explained how an evaluator deals with the evaluation-equivalent of the exploded piñata were represented with different pictures of candy, which accurately reflected their associated bullet point.
Each added piece of text and its corresponding picture are on their own slide so that as Michael works through the slide deck it looks like one chunk of text is added and the picture is changed.
Read about all 5 of Michael’s redesigned slides on the Potent Presentations Initiative. Michael will be giving workshops on Development Evaluation and Utilization-Focused Evaluation at the annual conference – check him out!
No tags
Stephanie Evergreen on Tom Chapel’s Fab Five Reboot
No comments ·
Posted by Dan McDonnell in Data Visualization and Reporting
Hello dear people! I’m Stephanie Evergreen and I talk a lot about data visualization and strong reporting. Today I’m going to share with you another installment in our Fab Five Reboot series, where I redesigned five slides from five of AEA’s eStudy presenters. Let’s take a look at Tom Chapel’s slideshow.
My focus with Tom Chapel’s Reboot was on working within the limitations of an organizational template. Tom says he already veers outside of that template designated by the CDC, and has had the use of his modified slides grandfathered, but many of us are in that position of having an organizational template foisted upon us. What can we do, while still working within those constraints?
Before
After
Even if Arial is the font we are forced to use, we can still add some variety and emphasis to the slides by varying the font’s weight. We can bold – or, in Arial’s case, use Arial Black – on keywords. I also adjusted the font size to make it better fit available space, though I kept it large enough for easy reading. Since Tom’s slides, in this particular case, are used for a webinar, let’s include a photo of him on the front. Even if he was reusing these slides in an in-person workshop, this would be up in the room as people filter in and find their seats, helping them identify which of the others is the speaker in advance. I took what is typically mandated (i.e., no choices in font, background, colors) and tweaked what aspects of them I could to make a cleaner slide that better represents Tom and the CDC.
Before
After
The graph had a lot going on. I simplified the data display by taking out the gray background, lightening the grid lines, and using direct labeling rather than a legend. Then I used colors from his template so the graph blends in better. Still, there’s so much happening in this slide. So I used the chart animation features so that Tom can isolate each part of the study as he shows its findings, first showing the title and axis, then (shown above) each data series one-at-a-time, then the Type I sites label, then all Type II sites (I actually had a white rectangle on top of the lower half of the graph, which I animated to Disappear on a click), then finally showing his main takeaway point. Sure, it’s still a lot of information. But by breaking it down and showing one piece at a time, we build the full slide slowly and keep from overwhelming the audience.
Read about all five rebooted slides on the Potent Presentations Initiative site and check out Tom’s workshop on Logic Models at this year’s conference.
Do you have questions, concerns, kudos, or content to extend this aea365 contribution? Please add them in the comments section for this post on the aea365 webpage so that we may enrich our community of practice. Would you like to submit an aea365 Tip? Please send a note of interest to aea365@eval.org . aea365 is sponsored by the American Evaluation Association and provides a Tip-a-Day by and for evaluators.
No tags
Stephanie Evergreen on Scott Chaplowe’s Fab Five Reboot
2 Comments ·
Posted by Dan McDonnell in Data Visualization and Reporting, Teaching of Evaluation
Hey! I’m Stephanie Evergreen and among other things I run AEA’s Potent Presentations Initiative. Lately we’ve been working with eStudy presenters to reboot just five of their slides. Great speakers and solid content need to be reflected in polished slides. Here is the reboot for Scott Chaplowe.
Scott’s workshop is a great comparison between monitoring and evaluation – where they overlap and where they are similar. Scott also interacts with his attendees quite often when he presents. I wanted to make his slidedeck reflect those same dynamic elements. Scott already knew how to use animation to guide attention to certain parts of his slide, so I continued to build on that where possible.
BEFORE
AFTER
I gradated the red color for the Results Hierarchy slide, so that the color change and the slow build of the slide via animation make the idea of a hierarchy more clear. With the removal of some unnecessary text on that slide, the explanatory material can be put into a larger font, too. Each row in the table is animated to appear one-at-a-time. Each arrow is also animated, so Scott can talk about the way Inputs feeds back to Activities for as long as needed without other distractions.
BEFORE
AFTER
When I told Scott I wanted to remake his slide on M&E and the Project Cycle, he let me know that there existed a somewhat better diagram but that he strongly preferred the use of animation to build each component of the diagram one at a time. Understandable. How can one get a single image file to become animated? Well, I used a lot of leg work but I cropped out each element of the better looking diagram and reassembled the individual pieces into a coherent whole. Then I added in the animation. Now, let me be clear that this was an enormous amount of work to get each piece cropped and I still see some things about it that I don’t like, where I could have done a better job. It will not always be worth the effort it took to make the diagram animated. It is probably only justified in cases like this, where it is an essential slide for the talk, a real centerpiece (and you don’t have access to the original file used to make the image).
Read about all 5 revised slides on the Potent Presentations Initiative site and look for Scott at this year’s conference.
Do you have questions, concerns, kudos, or content to extend this aea365 contribution? Please add them in the comments section for this post on the aea365 webpage so that we may enrich our community of practice. Would you like to submit an aea365 Tip? Please send a note of interest to aea365@eval.org. aea365 is sponsored by the American Evaluation Association and provides a Tip-a-Day by and for evaluators.
|