annotate with text
When it comes to storytelling with data, one very important component of stories is words. There are some words that absolutely have to be there: every graph needs a title and every axis needs a title. Label directly so your audience doesn't question what they are looking at. In this post, we'll consider the important role of words when it comes to communicating effectively with data.
consult for context
Often, when you are putting together a communication, it is at the request of someone else: a client, a stakeholder, or a manager. Sometimes, the person requesting the work has things in their head that are important to understand that they may not think to say out loud. In this post, we discuss some questions you can leverage in this situation. Being clear on the context up front can drastically reduce iterations down the road.
show the full picture!
I've posted a number of times about Pew Research articles. Well, not the articles exactly, but rather the visuals they contain. To be honest, it's rare that I read the actual article. I scan the headlines as they hit my inbox and if something piques my interest, I follow the link and scroll through the article, not reading, but taking a discerning look at the graphs. Check out this post for makeovers of two Pew Research graphs on the topic of women bosses.
design with audience in mind
In this post, I makeover less-than-ideal visuals from a recent USA Today graphic summarizing diversity stats across a number of Bay Area tech companies and discuss my design thought process when doing so.