Chart Vibes -- And Why They Matter

Charts do more than share data, they send social signals according to new research from MIT. When people scroll past your chart on social media, they instantly form impressions about who you are and whether they should trust you, often before considering the data shown in the visualization.

For instance, some study participants guessed that slickly designed charts were ads, and therefore not trustworthy. One participant dismissed a chart because of its hand-drawn style gave the vibes of "some female Instagram influencer who is just trying to look for attention." Being wary of any information on social media, including charts, makes good sense. Indeed, climate deniers are using the trappings of academic research, including charts, to make their messages appear more reliable, according to this analysis.

So how can you gain the attention of cautious social media consumers? Consider the following when designing charts for posting:

  • Choose colors and fonts that fit your organization’s personality. Clean, calm styles signal credibility and care; trendy effects can read as hype.

  • Show who made it. Add your logo or a note like “Created by [Your Org]” and cite your data source. These are trust cues.

  • Keep it simple. On small screens, clarity beats flair. Make sure your main number or takeaway is instantly visible.

Before posting, ask: If someone unfamiliar with us saw this chart, would it feel trustworthy?

Here’s an article in Phy.org about the MIT research. And here is the journal article with more detail.

 
 

Let’s talk about YOUR data!

Got the feeling that you and your colleagues would use your data more effectively if you could see it better? Data Viz for Nonprofits (DVN) can help you get the ball rolling with an interactive data dashboard and beautiful charts, maps, and graphs for your next presentation, report, proposal, or webpage. Through a short-term consultation, we can help you to clarify the questions you want to answer and goals you want to track. DVN then visualizes your data to address those questions and track those goals.

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How Nonprofits Should -- And Should NOT -- Use AI To Make Better Charts (Episode 3)

Here’s the third tip in a mini-series on three simple ways to use AI to make better charts. ICYMI, here’s the first tip and the second tip in the series. I begin each of these tips with a caution on how NOT to use AI when visualizing data.

Don’t Use AI to make charts. As data viz guru Stephanie Evergreen says, “AI just makes it easier to make bad graphs” — those that are hard to decipher, poorly designed, and even show incorrect data. And with the amount of prompting that is needed to get a passable chart, current AI tools don’t save you much or any time. Currently, humans are still better at visualizing data, bringing important knowledge to the game. This includes knowledge of the data itself, the intended audiences, and the contexts that help us to understand the significance of the data. Of course, AI is a young and developing tool. But it seems to me that as it gets better, humans just become more important. AI requires us to think more deeply in order to ask better questions of AI and to assess its output.

Do Use AI to polish your chart. Polishing a chart doesn’t mean adding glitter—it means making every visual choice serve your story. AI tools can help you do just that:

  • Rewrite confusing labels or titles. Ask AI to suggest plainer, more human ways to say what your chart shows.

  • Spot clutter. Let AI critique your chart for too many colors, gridlines, or legends.

  • Reorder or group data. AI can detect patterns you’ve missed and propose a more logical layout or sequence.

Let’s say that a food security nonprofit built a bar chart showing monthly pantry visits, but the axis labels overlapped and the title read “Service Volume Over Time.” By asking an AI assistant to review the chart and identify elements that might be confusing or misleading for the intended users, they might get suggestions to:

  • Simplify the title to “More Households Needed Food Aid This Winter.”

  • Use fewer color shades to reduce visual noise.

  • Add a short annotation pointing to the holiday-season spike.

Be careful: AI polishing should support your message, not overwrite it. Always check that suggested labels, annotations, or color changes keep the meaning true to your data.

 
 

Let’s talk about YOUR data!

Got the feeling that you and your colleagues would use your data more effectively if you could see it better? Data Viz for Nonprofits (DVN) can help you get the ball rolling with an interactive data dashboard and beautiful charts, maps, and graphs for your next presentation, report, proposal, or webpage. Through a short-term consultation, we can help you to clarify the questions you want to answer and goals you want to track. DVN then visualizes your data to address those questions and track those goals.

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How Nonprofits Should -- And Should NOT -- Use AI To Make Better Charts (Episode 2)

Here’s the second tip in a mini-series on three simple ways to use AI to make better charts. ICYMI, here’s the first tip in the series that I posted last week. I begin each of these tips with a caution on how NOT to use AI when visualizing data.

Don’t Use AI to make charts. As data viz guru Stephanie Evergreen says: “AI just makes it easier to make bad graphs” — those that are hard to decipher, poorly designed, and even show incorrect data. And with the amount of prompting that is needed to get a passable chart, current AI tools don’t save you much or any time. Humans are still better at visualizing data, bringing important knowledge to the game. This includes knowledge of the data itself, the intended audiences, and the contexts that help us to understand the significance of the data. Of course, AI is a young and developing tool. But it seems to me that as it gets better, humans just become more important. AI requires us to think more deeply in order to ask better questions of AI and to assess its output.

Do Use AI to clean and fill in missing data.

Nonprofit datasets often come from forms, spreadsheets, and surveys full of missing or inconsistent entries. Consider asking AI to clean and complete your data before visualizing it. AI tools can help you:

  • Spot duplicates or typos (e.g., “Chicago,” “chicago,” “Chi-town”).

  • Standardize formats (like dates or capitalization).

  • Remove unwanted columns/fields.

  • Sort the data by a particular field.

  • Add new data to the data file.

  • Suggest likely values for missing entries using simple patterns.

For example, a youth development organization might find that 30% of survey responses are missing participants’ ages. By asking an AI tool to infer likely age ranges based on program level (e.g., middle vs. high school program), the nonprofit can fill gaps responsibly—then flag those entries as estimates. That allows for a fuller, more accurate chart showing the age distribution of participants.

But be careful: AI guesses are still guesses. Always mark imputed values and verify patterns with human oversight—especially when sensitive demographic or personal data are involved.

Look for one more tip in this mini-series on using AI to make better charts in the coming weeks.

 
 

Let’s talk about YOUR data!

Got the feeling that you and your colleagues would use your data more effectively if you could see it better? Data Viz for Nonprofits (DVN) can help you get the ball rolling with an interactive data dashboard and beautiful charts, maps, and graphs for your next presentation, report, proposal, or webpage. Through a short-term consultation, we can help you to clarify the questions you want to answer and goals you want to track. DVN then visualizes your data to address those questions and track those goals.

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How Nonprofits Should -- And Should NOT -- Use AI To Make Better Charts (Episode 1)

Here’s the first tip in a mini-series on three simple ways to use AI to make better charts. I begin each of these tips with a caution on how NOT to use AI when visualizing data.

Don’t Use AI to make charts. As data viz guru Stephanie Evergreen says: “AI just makes it easier to make bad graphs” — those that are hard to decipher, poorly designed, and even show incorrect data. And with the amount of prompting that is needed to get a passable chart, current AI tools don’t save you much or any time. Humans are still better at visualizing data, bringing important knowledge to the game. This includes knowledge of the data itself, the intended audiences, and the contexts that help us to understand the significance of the data. Of course, AI is a young and developing tool. But it seems to me that as it gets better, humans just become more important. AI requires us to think more deeply so that we ask better questions of AI and can assess its output.

Do Use AI to suggest chart types.

AI can help you avoid the “default bar chart” trap. Instead of showing a simple bar chart of membership over time, AI might suggest a slope chart that highlights the rate of growth more clearly. For example, an environmental nonprofit tracking carbon reduction could use a line or slope chart to spotlight year-over-year progress in emissions reductions.

In your prompt, be sure to describe the type of data you have and what you hope to show with the chart. But be careful: AI doesn’t always understand your audience. What looks like an interesting chart may confuse stakeholders who aren’t used to certain chart types. Always ask: “Will my board, funders, or community partners recognize and interpret this visual correctly?” Use AI suggestions as a starting point, not the final word.

Look for two more tips in this mini-series on using AI to make better charts in the coming weeks.

 
 

Let’s talk about YOUR data!

Got the feeling that you and your colleagues would use your data more effectively if you could see it better? Data Viz for Nonprofits (DVN) can help you get the ball rolling with an interactive data dashboard and beautiful charts, maps, and graphs for your next presentation, report, proposal, or webpage. Through a short-term consultation, we can help you to clarify the questions you want to answer and goals you want to track. DVN then visualizes your data to address those questions and track those goals.

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Plot Twist: Your Data Has a Story

Data storytelling is the art of translating complex data into compelling narratives. It goes beyond a mere presentation of numbers and charts. It's about weaving data, visuals, and narrative into a cohesive story that resonates with your audience. Effective data storytelling makes information more accessible, memorable, and actionable. When done well, data storytelling is less like a novel and more like a choose-your-own-adventure. It takes your hand and leads you through the story but allows you to see that the data can tell any number of stories. It invites you in, orients you, and lets you explore.

Here’s a little preview of my upcoming online workshop on finding and telling data stories. I’m sharing the first few slides. (Click below to advance through slides.) Hope you can join me for the real thing on Wednesday, November 5, 2025, 12 PM - 1 PM ET. Register here.

 
 

Let’s talk about YOUR data!

Got the feeling that you and your colleagues would use your data more effectively if you could see it better? Data Viz for Nonprofits (DVN) can help you get the ball rolling with an interactive data dashboard and beautiful charts, maps, and graphs for your next presentation, report, proposal, or webpage. Through a short-term consultation, we can help you to clarify the questions you want to answer and goals you want to track. DVN then visualizes your data to address those questions and track those goals.

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"I Am This Stat”: Pairing Charts with Human Stories

Numbers show scale. Stories show stakes.

If your chart says “12% of local teens have dropped out of school,” that’s powerful. But if you add a face, a voice, or a name—like “That 12% includes Kofi, age 15, who left school to support his family”—now the data lands with meaning.

Here’s how to do it:

  • Pick one stat. Choose a single data point that’s easy to grasp.

  • Pair it with a single person. Feature a short quote, photo, or name (with permission) that represents the data. One real voice can speak volumes.

  • Let them speak. Keep the story in their own words if possible.

This simple combo—a chart + a story—may create what behavioral scientists call identifiable victim effect. This is the tendency of individuals to offer greater aid when a specific, identifiable person is observed under hardship, as compared to a large, vaguely defined group with the same need. What makes an individual “identifiable”? Personal data such as names, ages, and photos, according to research, are deemed identifiable. And the effect appears stronger when only one person is identified. Check out this example:

 
 

Let’s talk about YOUR data!

Got the feeling that you and your colleagues would use your data more effectively if you could see it better? Data Viz for Nonprofits (DVN) can help you get the ball rolling with an interactive data dashboard and beautiful charts, maps, and graphs for your next presentation, report, proposal, or webpage. Through a short-term consultation, we can help you to clarify the questions you want to answer and goals you want to track. DVN then visualizes your data to address those questions and track those goals.

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Nonprofit Inspiration from the Information is Beautiful Award Winners

Looking for quick and powerful data-inspired ideas to energize your nonprofit communications or campaigns? Explore highlights from the 2024 Information is Beautiful Awards, where data storytelling shines—and learn how to bring similar clarity, impact, and beauty to your mission.

Humanitarian – Gold Winner

Source: Reuters

The world’s hunger watchdog warned of catastrophe in Sudan. Famine struck anyway. (Reuters)

This article leads you through a series of visualizations, to help you to understand a complex humanitarian crisis and how the world’s hunger monitoring-and-response system is falling short in addressing it. Visualizations, such as the one shown above, help you to comprehend the system’s classification of the problem by looking at a sample of 100 people living in Sudan’s Zamzam camp.

Places, Spaces & Environment – Gold Winner

I Want a Better Catastrophe: A Flowchart for Navigating our Climate Predicament (University of Applied Sciences Potsdam)

This flowchart, which combines an audio narration with interactive elements, is an invitation to join Andrew Boyd, the designer, on his narrative path and explore the predicament on your own.

For more inspiration, check out other 2024 winners.

Let’s talk about YOUR data!

Got the feeling that you and your colleagues would use your data more effectively if you could see it better? Data Viz for Nonprofits (DVN) can help you get the ball rolling with an interactive data dashboard and beautiful charts, maps, and graphs for your next presentation, report, proposal, or webpage. Through a short-term consultation, we can help you to clarify the questions you want to answer and goals you want to track. DVN then visualizes your data to address those questions and track those goals.

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How to Make Your Data More Accessible & Inclusive

When your charts are hard to read, navigate, or interpret, you may unintentionally exclude people with visual, cognitive, or physical differences. The good news? A few simple tweaks can make your visualizations dramatically more inclusive—without sacrificing impact. Below are three practical ways to start, each with links to deeper dives from past 60-Second Data Tips.

1. Design with Color Blindness in Mind

About 1 in 20 people live with some form of color vision deficiency. Relying solely on color to differentiate data points leaves these viewers behind. Use texture, shape, or labels—not just color—to distinguish categories. Also, tools like Color Oracle can help simulate how those with color blindness see your work, and you can generate an accessible color palette using an online tool like this one from Venngage.

Read more: How To Make Your Data Viz More Accessible: Color Blindness

2. Size Text for Readability

Small fonts and tight spacing are common in data visuals—but they create major accessibility barriers, especially for older adults or users with low vision. The rule of thumb is: Text must not be smaller than 9 points in size. And always test readability at 100% zoom—especially on dashboards.

Read more: What's The Right Text Size to Make Data Viz Accessible?

3. Structure for Screen Readers & Keyboard Navigation

If your charts are embedded in websites or reports, they should be usable by people who rely on screen readers or keyboard controls. You can make your data visualizations more screen reader- and keyboard-friendly by reducing the number of marks and adding text that clarifies the content of the visualization.

Read more: How To Make Your Data Viz More Accessible: Screen Readers and Keyboard Navigation

Let’s talk about YOUR data!

Got the feeling that you and your colleagues would use your data more effectively if you could see it better? Data Viz for Nonprofits (DVN) can help you get the ball rolling with an interactive data dashboard and beautiful charts, maps, and graphs for your next presentation, report, proposal, or webpage. Through a short-term consultation, we can help you to clarify the questions you want to answer and goals you want to track. DVN then visualizes your data to address those questions and track those goals.

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How to Put The Viewer In The Viz

Reposted from May 2021

Here’s a surefire way to engage your donors, staff, board members, and others in your data: put them in it. This series of interactive visualizations from The New York Times shows you, right out of the gates, whether you live in a Democratic or Republican bubble. Then it zooms out to zip code areas near you and finally focuses on the segregated political landscape in the U.S. more generally.

Think about how you can engage various stakeholders in your data by using a similar technique. For example, show viewers . . .

  • How close they are to a problem. Rather than present statistics on food insecurity in your region, ask viewers to enter their zip code to see how many families near them don’t have consistent access to healthy food.

  • How accurate their understanding of an issue is. Ask them how many women experience domestic violence or how many children experience poverty, and then show them how far off the mark they are. Check out this example!

  • How their habits or lifestyle contribute to—or help to reduce—a problem. Check out this Carbon Footprint Calculator for a great example.

  • What category they fall into. We all love to discover groups we belong to. Think of Harry Potter’s sorting hat. Consider elucidating an issue by showing viewers where they fall in relation to that issue. That’s what I did with this data personality viz.

And no, you don’t need to be a tech wiz to make these types of interactive visualizations. You can make them using Tableau Public, the free version of Tableau (or a similar data viz application) and embed them in your website. I’m also happy to create something like this for you.

Let’s talk about YOUR data!

Got the feeling that you and your colleagues would use your data more effectively if you could see it better? Data Viz for Nonprofits (DVN) can help you get the ball rolling with an interactive data dashboard and beautiful charts, maps, and graphs for your next presentation, report, proposal, or webpage. Through a short-term consultation, we can help you to clarify the questions you want to answer and goals you want to track. DVN then visualizes your data to address those questions and track those goals.

Schedule A Free Consultation

Nonprofits Need This Dashboard

Reposted from November 2023

Does your nonprofit have participants (or volunteers or clients or human beings of another sort) in various programs? If so, you could benefit from a dashboard like this one (see below). Give it a spin. Select a program at the top to highlight participants in that program in the charts. This dashboard allows for easy comparisons across programs, across statuses (e.g. enrolled, waitlisted, and withdrawn), and across time. Scroll over charts to learn more.

My inspiration for this dashboard came from Eve Thomas at The Data School. Check out Eve’s article, which includes instructions for creating this type of dashboard with Tableau (assuming basic Tableau knowledge.)

Let’s talk about YOUR data!

Got the feeling that you and your colleagues would use your data more effectively if you could see it better? Data Viz for Nonprofits (DVN) can help you get the ball rolling with an interactive data dashboard and beautiful charts, maps, and graphs for your next presentation, report, proposal, or webpage. Through a short-term consultation, we can help you to clarify the questions you want to answer and goals you want to track. DVN then visualizes your data to address those questions and track those goals.

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What's The Difference Between An Infographic and A Data Visualization?

Reposted from April 2018

Infographic and data visualization often are used interchangeably. And, indeed, the distinction is not hard and fast. They both focus on showing rather than telling. They explain something using more visual cues than words or numbers and so take advantage of our visual superpowers. (For more on these superpowers, see Tip #1.) The difference is that an infographic is more of a story, and a data visualization is more of a tool.

An infographic typically uses images to lead the viewer through a story. Some of those images might be visualizations of data. For example, the point of this infographic is to highlight aspects of a nonprofit workforce shortage. Infographics are usually meant to explain or show something to people who are not all that familiar with the topic.

A data visualization, unlike an infographic, uses visual cues (shape, color, size, etc.) primarily to represent data. Think bar chart, line graph, pie chart, and maps. And though the creators of the data visualization may have a story they want to tell, the viewer can use the visualization to discern any number of stories.

For example, on the quadrants chart below, each circle represents an educational strategy. The strategies are plotted along two measures: how much importance educators place on the strategies and how often they put these strategies into practice. We can use this chart as a tool to decide what to do next. Clearly, most of the educators represented in the data already feel these strategies are important. But they use most of the tactics less than 50 percent of the time. So we need not waste time explaining the value of the strategies to them. Instead, we should determine what is preventing them from implementing the strategies.

If you are looking to tell a specific story particularly to an outside audience, consider an infographic. If you are looking for a tool to explore data, consider a data visualization.

 
 

Let’s talk about YOUR data!

Got the feeling that you and your colleagues would use your data more effectively if you could see it better? Data Viz for Nonprofits (DVN) can help you get the ball rolling with an interactive data dashboard and beautiful charts, maps, and graphs for your next presentation, report, proposal, or webpage. Through a short-term consultation, we can help you to clarify the questions you want to answer and goals you want to track. DVN then visualizes your data to address those questions and track those goals.

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Understand Your Volunteers Using "Pantry Staple" Data

If your organization is like most nonprofits, you rely on volunteers to get the job done. And you probably have at least some basic “pantry staple” data on volunteers.

Pantry Staple Data: Volunteer Data

The volunteer data you already have can be leveraged to:

  • Impress funders, donors, and other stakeholders. Show them how you are using this free resource to move the needle.

  • Recruit new volunteers. As we have discussed in this blog before, we are all influenced by peers. So show how many volunteers you have to attract even more.

  • Manage volunteers more effectively. Seeing clearly what’s going on with your volunteers will help you to retain them, make better use of them, and recruit new ones. This is the subject of today’s tip.

Use Case: Maximizing Volunteer Time and Value

This volunteer data dashboard uses a variety of charts to answer the who, what, where, and when questions that you may have about your volunteers. With this detailed view of volunteers, an organization can start thinking about how to activate inactive volunteers, what types of new volunteers to target, and when during the year to deploy volunteers.

Source: Jin Tat on Tableau Public

Source: Jin Tat on Tableau Public

This simple map dashboard provides insight into the distribution of volunteers—and volunteer hours—among sites. This understanding can help you decide if and how to redistribute volunteers. Both this dashboard and the one above can be created using Tableau Public, the free version of Tableau.

Source:CCE on Tableau Public

Source:CCE on Tableau Public

To see past data tips, click HERE.

Let’s talk about YOUR data!

Got the feeling that you and your colleagues would use your data more effectively if you could see it better? Data Viz for Nonprofits (DVN) can help you get the ball rolling with an interactive data dashboard and beautiful charts, maps, and graphs for your next presentation, report, proposal, or webpage. Through a short-term consultation, we can help you to clarify the questions you want to answer and goals you want to track. DVN then visualizes your data to address those questions and track those goals.

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A Simple Way to Improve Nonprofit Charts

Sometimes showing whether something happened or not is more powerful than showing how much it changed over time. A recent Grist article highlights this idea through a striking example: instead of showing gradual temperature shifts over time (see the lefthand chart below), scientists simply showed whether a lake froze each winter—yes or no—across several decades (see righthand chart below). People who saw the righthand chart were more likely to perceive climate change as causing more abrupt changes.

Source: Grist

This binary approach—did/didn’t, yes/no, on/off—turns complex data into clear signals. And it’s not just for climate science. Nonprofits can use it to communicate impact in a way that’s instantly understood. Long-term trends are easier to see, and it evokes a stronger emotional response.

Try this in your nonprofit work:

  • Show which years a program met its goals and which it didn’t.

  • Visualize which communities have (or don’t have) access to a key service.

  • Use a yes/no timeline to highlight when a resource was available.

Binary visuals don’t oversimplify—they clarify. Read the full story here: Grist – Scientists just found a way to break through climate apathy.

To see past data tips, click HERE.

Let’s talk about YOUR data!

Got the feeling that you and your colleagues would use your data more effectively if you could see it better? Data Viz for Nonprofits (DVN) can help you get the ball rolling with an interactive data dashboard and beautiful charts, maps, and graphs for your next presentation, report, proposal, or webpage. Through a short-term consultation, we can help you to clarify the questions you want to answer and goals you want to track. DVN then visualizes your data to address those questions and track those goals.

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How To Balance Your Information Diet

Reposted from January 2024

Here’s a question for you. And don’t go Googling. Just make your best guess.

Have the number of people experiencing homelessness in the U.S. increased or decreased since 2007?

Whatever your answer, you likely drew on your own personal experience as well as images and information from the media when guessing at the answer. Perhaps you drew on some statistics too. But, unless you have expertise in this area, probably not. Stick with me for a minute, and I’ll not only provide an answer to the question but also some insight into how we consume information.

Personal experience, media, and statistics affect how we understand any issue, and there are limits to each of these inputs. So we would do well to understand those limits before acting on our understanding by voting, donating, or making decisions about programs that our organizations operate. Max Roser’s article in Our World in Data (The limits of our personal experience and the value of statistics) walks us through some of those limitations:

Personal Experience

“The world is large, and we can experience only very little of it personally,” Roser notes. “For every person you know, there are ten million people you do not know.” Even the most social and well-traveled among us can have only a limited understanding of the world through personal experience. I, for example, do not know anyone personally who has been unhoused, and most of my interactions with people in this situation occur on the street when someone asks me for money. This experience provides no information about the breadth of the problem or the range of experiences with this issue over time.

Media

“This fact is so obvious that it is easy to miss how important it is: everything you hear about anyone who is more than a few dozen meters away, you know through some form of media,” Roser points out. “The news reports on the unusual things that happen on a particular day, but the things that happen every day never get mentioned. This gives us a biased and incomplete picture of the world; we are inundated with detailed news on terrorism but hardly ever hear of everyday tragedies like the fact that 16,000 children die every single day.” If I recently heard a story about a city clearing homeless encampments, I may assess the problem as larger, and if I haven’t heard about anything on the issue in awhile, I may assess it as smaller.

Statistics

“The collection and production of good statistics is a major challenge,” writes Roser. “Data might be unrepresentative in some ways, it might be mismeasured, and some data might be missing entirely.” But, unlike personal experience and the media, it provides a way of assessing the full range of an issue. So it’s important to add statistics, along with personal experience and the media, to our information diet.

To add some statistics to your understanding of homelessness, the number of people experiencing homelessness in the U.S. decreased from about 650,000 in 2007 to about 580,000 (about 18 of every 10,000 people) in 2022 according to The 2022 Annual Homelessness Assessment Report to Congress.

We should not discount personal experience, the media, or statistics because of their limitations. But we should appreciate their limitations when forming opinions and taking actions based on them. As Roser notes: “Each way of learning about the world has its value. It’s about how we bring them together: the in-depth understanding that only personal interaction can give us, the focus on the powerful and unusual that the news offers, and the statistical view that gives us the opportunity to see everyone.” As described in many tips in this blog, well-designed charts make data/statistics more accessible to everyone and thus allow everyone to see everyone.

Let’s talk about YOUR data!

Got the feeling that you and your colleagues would use your data more effectively if you could see it better? Data Viz for Nonprofits (DVN) can help you get the ball rolling with an interactive data dashboard and beautiful charts, maps, and graphs for your next presentation, report, proposal, or webpage. Through a short-term consultation, we can help you to clarify the questions you want to answer and goals you want to track. DVN then visualizes your data to address those questions and track those goals.

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Lighten Cognitive Load, Boost Clarity: Smarter Data Visualizations for Nonprofits

When visualizing data, we should always consider cognitive load. What’s that? It’s the mental effort required to process information. There are two types of cognitive load: extraneous and intrinsic. Let's consider each in relation to data visualizations.

  • Extraneous cognitive load concerns how information is presented. There's a lot we can do to reduce the extraneous cognitive load of a chart.

  • Intrinsic cognitive load concerns the complexity of the information being shared. You can reduce intrinsic load only by altering what is being learned or by changing the knowledge levels of learners.

We can reduce the extraneous cognitive load of any chart through careful choices about titles, annotations, colors, use of white space, etc. But we are much more limited in what we can do to reduce the intrinsic cognitive load of a chart. I’d argue that the primary thing we can do is to choose a chart type that does not increase the intrinsic load by requiring the viewer to learn how to read the chart. So familiar or intuitive chart types usually work best.

Let's consider this data dashboard in terms of cognitive load. It has several different chart types.

The bar charts impose a fairly low intrinsic and extraneous cognitive load. We already know how to read a bar chart. They each show one measure which we probably can understand, such as C02 global share or CO2 per GDP across several years. And the compositions and colors aid interpretation. The cumulative carbon clock, however, is a different story. It may grab our attention with its novelty. It's a radial column chart (aka circular column graph or star graph.) But most of us will have to figure out how to read this chart using the color and shape legends to understand what the chart is showing and how it is showing it. I also find the circular shape, which usually suggests some type of cycle, confusing because there is no cycle inherent to this data. I think the costs of the radial column chart outweigh its benefits.

Let’s talk about YOUR data!

Got the feeling that you and your colleagues would use your data more effectively if you could see it better? Data Viz for Nonprofits (DVN) can help you get the ball rolling with an interactive data dashboard and beautiful charts, maps, and graphs for your next presentation, report, proposal, or webpage. Through a short-term consultation, we can help you to clarify the questions you want to answer and goals you want to track. DVN then visualizes your data to address those questions and track those goals.

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What Is Data, How Do You Say It, and Is It Singular or Plural? (Asking for a Friend)

Feel free to share this with your “friend.”

What is data?
Data is raw information—facts, numbers, or observations that haven't been analyzed yet. For nonprofits, this can take many forms, such as:

  • The number of attendees at your last fundraising event,

  • Donation amounts,

  • Volunteer hours logged, or

  • Survey responses from program participants

These are all data points. On their own, they don’t say much. But when you organize and analyze them, they become information—like knowing that donations spike after your newsletter goes out, or that volunteers stay longer when they receive training.

How do you pronounce it?
Americans lean toward day-tuh while Brits and “serious science types” may prefer dah-tuh.

Is it singular or plural?
Purists say data is plural (the singular is datum, a word used only by archaeologists and robots). But in everyday English, data acts like a singular noun. Example: “The data is confusing.” Also valid: “The data are confusing.”

Let’s talk about YOUR data!

Got the feeling that you and your colleagues would use your data more effectively if you could see it better? Data Viz for Nonprofits (DVN) can help you get the ball rolling with an interactive data dashboard and beautiful charts, maps, and graphs for your next presentation, report, proposal, or webpage. Through a short-term consultation, we can help you to clarify the questions you want to answer and goals you want to track. DVN then visualizes your data to address those questions and track those goals.

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How to Make Charts That Are Not Confusing

When clients ask me for a better way to show their data, it often becomes clear that they want something other than a bar chart. They hope that I will offer them some cool-looking chart that will captivate their stakeholders. There are, indeed, many interesting charts out there such as the ones pictured here.

Sources: APT: Voices For Human Dignity (1984-2024) | #VFSG | #VOTD by Arshi Saleh, Violin Chart Demo by Chinmay Jain, Parallel Coordinates Radar Chart by Andy Kriebel

But I always encourage my clients to consider how long it will take folks to learn how to read the chart using instructions and legends, then grasp the data in the chart, and finally remember what they saw. Unless the chart type is familiar or highly intuitive, it’s probably not worth it. Instead, I encourage them to focus on well-designed, visually-engaging charts that are also intuitive or familiar. Here are some 60-second data tips that can help:

  • How to hack a bar chart: I offer up eight bar chart hacks that make this trusty yet (sometimes) boring chart more interesting. See links below.

  • Data viz makeovers. Here are 10 art rules that elevate any data viz.

  • Chart types. To explore different chart types and what they are each good for, check out tips under “Chart Types” on the index/search page on the website.

I recently watched “Charts That Confuse Us” from a great series called “Chart Chat.” You might want to check that out too.

Bar Chart Hacks

Bar Chart Hack #1: The Divergent Stacked Bar Chart

Bar Chart Hack #2: The Icon Bar Chart

Bar Chart Hack #3: The Combo Chart

Bar Chart Hack #4: Radial Charts

Bar Chart Hack #5: Fine Tuning

Bar Chart Hack #6: The Funnel Chart

Bar Chart Hack #7: The Lollipop Chart

Bar Chart Hack #8: Double Duty Stacked Bars

Let’s talk about YOUR data!

Got the feeling that you and your colleagues would use your data more effectively if you could see it better? Data Viz for Nonprofits (DVN) can help you get the ball rolling with an interactive data dashboard and beautiful charts, maps, and graphs for your next presentation, report, proposal, or webpage. Through a short-term consultation, we can help you to clarify the questions you want to answer and goals you want to track. DVN then visualizes your data to address those questions and track those goals.

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Take Some Tips From The Information is Beautiful Awards

My tip for this week is to check out the Information is Beautiful (IIB) Awards’ longlist of nominees for 2024. IMO, there are some great ones here but also some beautiful-yet-confusing ones. Take a look at the 2024 vizzes in the Humanitarian longlist. I found the following three particularly inspiring. Click on the images below for more information.

Great way to provide context

The circles help us to understand the dramatic reduction in deaths due to natural disasters in the 21st century, particularly in areas harder-hit by disasters in the past, such as Asia. Of course, most of the 21st century is ahead of us, so the size of the circles will change over time.

 

Helpful Color Coding

This data dashboard uses consistent color coding across charts with cool tones indicating type of incident and warm tones indicating gender.

 

Effective Chart Type

Each circle in this beeswarm chart represents one of more than 13,000 incidents where at least one migrant died or went missing. The circle's size indicates the number of people affected. It provides a sobering understanding of the magnitude of the problem over time and across regions.

Let’s talk about YOUR data!

Got the feeling that you and your colleagues would use your data more effectively if you could see it better? Data Viz for Nonprofits (DVN) can help you get the ball rolling with an interactive data dashboard and beautiful charts, maps, and graphs for your next presentation, report, proposal, or webpage. Through a short-term consultation, we can help you to clarify the questions you want to answer and goals you want to track. DVN then visualizes your data to address those questions and track those goals.

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Ideas You Should Steal From This Viz (Installment 15)

“All creative work builds on what came before.” —Austin Kleon in Steal Like An Artist.

Today I offer up another steal-worthy interactive viz. This one is from the New York Times. See a snapshot of this interactive map (with some embellishments) above but definitely follow the link to give it a spin for yourself. Now, you may be thinking: “The New York Times is the Grand Poobah of data visualization. I can’t do what they do.” But you can! Actually, what they are doing here is pretty simple and can be done easily with drag-and-drop tools like Tableau.

Here’s what I suggest you steal from this viz:

  • Make it personal. The map allows you to zoom in on an area of interest to you to see how the issue may affect you or those you know.

  • Multiple perspectives. The map provides three lenses on the location of fatal shootings which help you put the data into context:

    • The number of shootings near each block from 2020 to 2023;

    • The change in shootings since 2016-19; and

    • The racial makeup of areas affected by gun violence.

To see past data tips, click HERE.

Let’s talk about YOUR data!

Got the feeling that you and your colleagues would use your data more effectively if you could see it better? Data Viz for Nonprofits (DVN) can help you get the ball rolling with an interactive data dashboard and beautiful charts, maps, and graphs for your next presentation, report, proposal, or webpage. Through a short-term consultation, we can help you to clarify the questions you want to answer and goals you want to track. DVN then visualizes your data to address those questions and track those goals.

Schedule A Free Consultation

Do Data Dashboards Pay Off?

I haven’t come across much research on the effectiveness of dashboards for organizations. So I thought I’d share this one with you from MIT. Okay, it’s from the for-profit sector. BUT, it does give you something to chew on. Based on a survey of 1,311 companies, the researchers found that those that were better at using data dashboards were also better at other things like innovation and growth. If you are thinking, “Well, that’s correlation rather than causation,” then I’m glad. Maybe these data tips are making an impact.

However, their research does suggest that something about using dashboards could be paying off for companies. Based on their analyses, which included a case study of one company, the researchers suggest that one reason "dashboarding” appears effective is that:

“Everybody in the company gets to see how it is doing against agreed-upon metrics and works together to make course corrections when necessary.”

The process of getting everyone on board with using a dashboard, they note, can take awhile. They also contend that the best dashboards focus not only on what value is created but also on how that value is created. So although their findings are only suggestive, they do jibe with common sense.

Many nonprofits have shifted their data collection to focus on metrics that help to asses their processes and impacts. Fewer, it seems, are effectively using dashboards to look at those metrics everyday and discuss patterns, trends, and benchmarks, and make course corrections along the way.

Creating customized interactive dashboards isn’t as hard as it sounds and can even be created with free applications like Tableau Public. If you’d like to set up a free consultation to explore this idea with me, please do.

To see past data tips, click HERE.

Let’s talk about YOUR data!

Got the feeling that you and your colleagues would use your data more effectively if you could see it better? Data Viz for Nonprofits (DVN) can help you get the ball rolling with an interactive data dashboard and beautiful charts, maps, and graphs for your next presentation, report, proposal, or webpage. Through a short-term consultation, we can help you to clarify the questions you want to answer and goals you want to track. DVN then visualizes your data to address those questions and track those goals.

Schedule A Free Consultation