Think about what you present,

Presenting Data: the rules and how you present it.

Most of your audience will be Make sure you’re: Is your audience: the public? other
accustomed to reading from left to • Clear professionals? possible custom-
right, and top to bottom: display your • Concise ers? Will they see it in print or on
• Consistent
information accordingly. • Correct the web?
Numbers/tables
Colours
• Aid understanding! People often • Use commas: 156729 is tricky to
have poor numeracy, or are lacking read compared to 156,729. • Remember colours have
confidence when dealing with numbers. • If you are using decimal points, line connotations. Use them if possible.
• Put numbers into columns to them up so your audience can compare • Bright colours can dominate.
compare them. figures: 156.72
• Use the minimum number of 15.67 Importance: Ignore me
figures required: 156,729 new homes 1.56 Worry about me
becomes 156,000 or almost 157,000 new • If you’ve got lots of figures, use
Gender: Nicola
homes (depending on context). white space to make the table easier to
Warren
read.

Label your table clearly Climate: Dry and sunny

Audience reads left to right, then top to bottom Text

• Think about the readability
of your font, including when you
use numbers.
• Try to use plain English.
• Remember: A.A.A.J! That
stands for ‘Avoid Acronyms And
Jargon’.

Never use: 3D charts;

Totals make use of left-right and top-bottom, putting the final total bottom right. ‘exploded’ charts;
‘donut’ pie charts.
Do you need this detail? Could you write about what it means, and why it is They all impede your audience’s
important, and leave the detailed table in an annex? ability to understand information.

Bar charts: used for comparing values Pie charts: used for showing how 100% or 1 whole is
made up
Label your chart clearly: think about
whether it meets your aim
Label your axes
Label your chart clearly: think about
whether it meets your aim

Excel’s chart wizard

enables you to change
the grey background, add Start at 12 o’clock
or remove grid lines and
change bar colours.

It is proper to start your

scale at zero: if this
makes your chart look
rubbish, think about
what else might meet
your aim Use graduations of the same colour to show they’re
connected

If there’s more than 1 chart in your publication, pick either Biggest section first, getting progressively smaller
horizontal or vertical bars - and stick to it. (don’t have lots of tiny slivers, though)
Presenting Data: the resources

The classics
Edward Tufte Stephen Few

Robin Williams

The young pretenders

Garr Reynolds Nancy Duarte David McCandless

And online
Statistics: Power from Data! StatCan -
www.tufte.com
http://www.statcan.gc.ca/edu/power-pouvoir/toc-
www.duarte.com tdm/5214718-eng.htm
www.presentationzen.com
www.informationisbeautiful.net www.istockphoto.com
http://junkcharts.typepad.com/junk_charts www.everystockphoto.com
http://finiteattentionspan.wordpress.com www.sxc.hu
www.powerpointninja.com www.imageafter.com
www.ted.com www.flickr.com/CreativeCommons
www.gapminder.org http://strangemaps.wordpress.com
www.chartgo.com
http://manyeyes.alphaworks.ibm.com/manyeyes/
http://www.improving-visualisation.org/