Chart Anatomy
These are the essential elements of an impactful chart.
Source: Storytelling with Data, Cole Nussbaumer Knaflic (2015)
Notes
According to Nancy Duarte, titles are to be "factual and neutral [and] convey what, how, and when measurement happened." In this case, the title sets up the question of general success of the science pilot, which the chart answers in the affirmative, and the takeaway drives home with a direct statement.
Notes
You may include a subtitle which further delineates or describes the context. In this case, a question does so by tying the chart's results to the question asked of the survey respondents.
Notes
Data labels must serve to help us interpret the chart, and particularly, special meaning we derive from particular aspects, outliers, anomalies, or deltas within the data.
Notes
The takeaway should be brief, descriptive text which summarizes the main point(s) of the chart. Use preattentive attributes such as color and other typographic formatting to help the audience more easily parse longer stretches of text.
Notes
Where possible, use preattentive attributes — typographic features which draw the viewer's eye — to emphasize meanings you wish them to derive from the data. In this case, the repetition of color to delineate success (green) and failure (orange) help us focus on the most important data in the chart. Enclosure is also used to set the survey question off from the rest of the slide. Finally, the takeaway employs preattentives using both all caps and green and orange color to form a whole sentences of meaning, i.e., "BEFORE...children felt just okay" and "AFTER...children were kind of interested, excited."
Notes
Legends and axes are important in helping the reader understand the larger context, as well as to give a sense of scale. In certain cases, when the legend or axes are omitted, the scale of the dataset is obscured from the viewer.
Notes
While properly citing your data is important, we typically place this information at the bottom left of the slide in a lighter, smaller font, so as not to interfere with the chart and the takeaway.
Notes
Why diversity is important...to whom? ...In what context? The title is far too vague. If many other slides from the same presentation would fit this title, your title may be too vague or general.
A more specific title might be "Success Delta Comparing Diverse/Non-diverse Teams"
Notes
Your visual should speak for itself. The highlighted text needlessly "explains" a visual chart textually. This highlighted text is closer to what the presenter should say to the audience. By verbalizing the highlighted text, you may then use this space for the takeaway message, which is more properly "Ethnically diverse teams experienced a higher success rate for investments."
Notes
Failing to proofread your work damages your credibility with the audience. It suggests you are either unintelligent or, worse, lazy. Data-rich presentations require close attention to detail. Proofreading carefully will help people believe and trust your insights.
Notes
The labels for both columns share essentially all the same words, leading to confusion and increasing the cognitive load on the viewer. Replace them with simple, clear alternatives: "Diverse" and "Non-diverse."
Rule of thumb: The more text you give the audience to read, the less time they have to listen to you.
Notes
In this instance, because both floating-point integers are within two-tenths of a percentage point, we might consider rounding them down, especially since they're not measuring values like money, which at scale might prove significant.
In this case, 32% and 24% are easier to read than their fractional counterparts.
Notes
The general rule for structuring the y-axis of a bar/column chart will be to ensure the final value on that axis is equal to the value of the next interval beyond the greatest value on the chart.
In this case, the designer should display the next interval established by the chart beyond 32.2%, which would be 40.
Notes
The columns are too thin for this chart. The space between columns should be half their width. Adjusting width will move them closer together, which will make comparison easier.
HINT
Not everything here needs to be here? What might you remove? What might you move? Change?
- Title
- Subtitle / question
- Data points
- Data labels
- Annotations
- Takeaway
- The X- and Y-axis
- Data source
- Preattentives
