how to avoid the “Christmas tree effect”
Did you ever notice how, when people are up against a problem, their natural tendency is to solve it by trying all kinds of things, piling on solutions, until they find one that seems to work? Why is it that we rarely take a step back and consider whether the challenge could be better addressed by removing things instead?
This predisposition to solve by addition is a known facet of human behavior. It’s often referred to as “the Christmas tree effect,” inspired by the tendency of families who trim a tree to acquire more and more ornaments every year; instead of editing out some of the older or less-beloved ones, folks just keep adding more and more until it's overflowing with decorations.
Once you’re aware of it, you’ll see the Christmas tree effect popping up everywhere—including in business. Imagine a company suddenly contending with slumping sales, for example. The knee-jerk reaction is often to ramp up marketing, brainstorm new sales tactics, or add new offerings. When a process isn't working, there's a tendency to add steps, checks, and controls. In software development, each successive version tends to patch unexpected errors while piling new features into an ever-growing codebase.
In all of these cases, our natural instincts can hinder our ability to find an optimal solution. Sales might improve if we just evaluate our current catalog and streamline what’s already there. Our processes might benefit from simplification or removing bottlenecks. The next version of our software might be best served by refining and perfecting the core functions that users originally found valuable.
It’s critical that we be vigilant about avoiding the Christmas tree effect in our visual design and data visualizations. Consider how dashboards, slide decks, and reports tend to evolve over time. Each successive iteration often includes additional graphs, charts, and bullet points in an attempt to convey more information. However, this usually results in cluttered, confusing presentations that are hard to follow.
At the tactical level, the Christmas Tree effect can lead to charts and graphs that are so overladen with data points, trend lines, and annotations that the main message is obscured. This visual noise can distract from the insights the data is supposed to reveal, leading to misinterpretation or analysis paralysis where no decision can be confidently made.
That’s why we are so adamant about ensuring that our visuals are decluttered from the very start. When we imagine starting from the ground up, from a blank sheet of paper or a clean screen, we are able to envision the ideal and most elegant version of our communication, one that contains everything an audience needs for clarity, and nothing that it doesn't.
By taking this approach early on in the development process, it eventually becomes second nature to see and eliminate unnecessary elements that our tools added by default, or to confidently remove immaterial or irrelevant data. We are then presenting data in a way that is immediately understandable, without unnecessary embellishments that can mislead or confuse.
By resisting the urge to solve every problem by adding something, and focusing instead on subtraction, you can avoid the Christmas tree effect. By doing so, you’ll often find more powerful, straightforward, and effective ways to solve challenges—not just in your visualizations, but in all facets of your work.
Do you want to learn to create and communicate a powerful data story? Join our upcoming 8-week online course: plan, create, and deliver your data story. Data storytellers Amy and Simon will guide you through the world of storytelling with data, teaching a repeatable process to plan in helpful ways, distill critical components, create effective materials (graphs, slides, and presentations), and communicate it all in a way that gets your audience’s attention and drives action. Learn more and register today.
