Ideas You Should Steal From This Viz (Installment 16)

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

Today I offer up another steal-worthy interactive viz that I came across in the Tableau Public Gallery.

Source: James Goodall on Tableau Public

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

  • Three measures. This dashboard gets around the quandry of what to show: totals, change in totals, or percentage change by offering all three. The totals give you a sense of the relative size of the districts. The change gives you a sense of the relative size of the population change across districts (From 2020? The time period for the change is not indicated). And the percentage change give you a sense of the size of the change relative to the size of the district across districts.

  • Easy comparisons across subgroups. The bar charts allow for easy comparisons across both districts and gender groups.

  • Key finding captions. The dashboard includes some captions with key findings for each group: all, male, and female. The captions provide a summary of the data and thus a launching point for further exploration of the data.

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
 
 

What's Better Than Bare Naked Charts?

A study by MIT, UC Berkeley, and Tableau researchers found that people prefer charts with clear, helpful text over both plain, bare charts and text-only explanations. But what you write—and where you put it—makes a difference.

What works best:

  • Big picture messages (example: “Sharp drop in donations in 2024”) work well as chart titles—that’s what people notice first and remember best.

  • Key numbers or comparisons (example: “Highest turnout in 2023”) should go right next to the point or part of the chart they explain.

  • Context or background info (example: “Policy change led to spike”) also works best close to the related data—not just in the title

Check out how the simple changes made between the before and after charts allow you to more easily draw meaning from it.


Tip for nonprofits: When designing charts for funders, boards, or the public, guide your audience to the key point with well-placed text. They’ll remember your story—not just the numbers.

 
 

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

The Pies That Bind

For the past several years, at this time of year, I’ve shared this map:

Data drawn from this 2022 Food & Wine article

According to a 2022 Food & Wine article, Pinterest analyzed internal search data to discover the most common pie recipe search terms in each state. I took that data and mapped it. As you can see below, pie preferences do not appear to fall along regional, ideological, or even agricultural lines. Minnesotans love lemon pie, and Floridians love pumpkin pie, although I’m guessing that more lemons are grown in Florida and pumpkins in Minnesota.

Wondering if preferences have changed since 2022, I looked for updated data. But I could not find a more recent analysis of pie recipe searches on Pinterest or elsewhere. What I did find was this map showing Instacart data on pie ordering.

This map doesn’t show each state’s most popular pie order but rather its most distinctive one. Turns out I live in the french silk pie region of the country, where Instacart orders for this type of pie beat national averages. So it seems that while many of my neighbors are searching for (and possibly baking) berry pies, many are ordering chocolate ones.

What does this all mean? Well, probably not much. But it does provide some evidence that, while we may be divided in other ways, the American pie map doesn’t look anything like an electoral map. So this Thanksgiving, let’s be thankful for our shared love of pie.

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
Featured
044-CcCS-bIy_ss.jpg
Hi, I'm Amelia.

Small Tweaks That Boost Chart Impact

Text in charts can clarify your data or clutter it. To get it right, here are two key tips:

1. Make text slightly darker than the marks.
Marks are the visual elements that represent your data—lines, circles, bars, or shapes. Labels and annotations should be easy to read but not compete with the data itself. A good rule: make your text a bit darker than your marks.

2. Follow the “Z” pattern.
In cultures that read left to right and top to bottom, the eye naturally moves across a page in a Z shape. Position important annotations along this path—top left, across, down diagonally, and then across the bottom. This helps people notice key takeaways at just the right moment in their visual journey.

Consider this example with the “Z” pattern superimposed on it. This chart places the title, key annotation, color legend, and horizontal axis along the Z, helping us to easily pull out the key information.

 
 
 
 

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

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.

Schedule A Free Consultation

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.

Schedule A Free Consultation

What's Haunted In Your Backyard?

In honor of Halloween, my data (?!) tip this week is to beware of haunted places in your neck of the woods. This map could help.

Note that this visualization is a riff on Spooky Places in the USA by Kanyanee M. See original 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

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.

Schedule A Free Consultation

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.

Schedule A Free Consultation

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.

Schedule A Free Consultation

This Is the Most Important Part of Your Chart (And You're Probably Doing It Last)

Next time you create a chart, try this approach: start by creating a title that includes a key takeaway that matters to your audience and then design the chart to show it. Why? Because viewers don’t read charts like books—they scan for meaning. And eye-tracking studies show that people spend the most time looking at the chart’s title. It’s the anchor of understanding.

So how do you write a strong title?

  • Say what happened, not just what’s shown, such as “Volunteer Retention Rose 20% After Mentorship Launch” rather than “Volunteer Retention by Year”.

  • Include a number when possible. Specific figures build credibility and draw attention such as “1 in 3 Clients Report Food Insecurity.”

  • Drop the jargon. Keep it accessible to board members, funders, and frontline staff with titles like “More Families Getting Help—But Fewer Are Returning.”

Once your title is set, use color, annotations, and layout to back it up. Highlight the key bar, darken the relevant trend, or add a short annotation to explain a sudden change. Every design choice should make it easier for your audience to see the story your title is telling.

When you lead with a clear, compelling title—and support it with thoughtful design—you make meaning.

Tip inspired by John Burn-Murdoch of the Financial Times and research on how we read charts.

 
 

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

"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.

Schedule A Free Consultation

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.

Schedule A Free Consultation

Do You Need A Few Good Charts?

 
 

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

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.

Schedule A Free Consultation

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

Guinea Pig Your Data Viz

Reposted from October 2018

Let’s say you have a well-designed chart, graph, or map. Now it’s time to find some humans (preferably those similar to your intended users), show them the visualization (aka viz), and do the following:

  • Ask them what they think the viz is about and what question(s) it is trying to answer.

  • Then ask them to try to answer several specific questions using the viz. These questions should focus on the key information you want users to easily extract from the viz.

  • Take notes. What was difficult for them to figure out? Did they miss any critical aspects of the viz? Did they come to any incorrect conclusions or interesting conclusions you didn’t expect?

Use your notes to revise:

  • Make some aspects of the viz more prominent using color,

  • Fade other aspects to the background,

  • Add a better title or more captions,

  • Remove confusing or distracting elements, and even

  • Add new data to make clearer comparisons.

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.

Schedule A Free Consultation

How To Choose The Right Chart

Copy of 60-SECOND DATA TIP.png

Reposted from September 2018 with updates!

There are many chart choosing tools out there. You can find online tools: just Google “chart chooser.” You also can use tools built into data visualization applications like Tableau or, of course, ask your friendly AI. But I still like this simple one: Andrew Abela’s decision tree called Chart Suggestions—A Thought-Starter.  It’s based on Gene Zelazny's classic work Say It With Charts. I like that it focuses on what you are aiming to show and gets you thinking about that. Indeed, it prompts thinking, as the name suggests, and thinking is a good activity to do before visualizing data!

The decision tree starts with the basic question: “What would you like to show?” And provides four options:

Comparison. You have two or more groups of things or people and you want to see which group is largest/smallest or highest/lowest (or somewhere in between) on some measure. You also may want to see how these groups compare on the measure overtime.

Distribution. You have a bunch of data points (e.g. the ages of participants in a program or test scores of students in a class) and you want to know how spread out or bunched up they are. Are most of the ages, test scores (whatever) near the average? Or is there a wide range? Are there some extreme outliers?

Composition. You want to understand who or what makes up a larger group such as how many of the participants in a program are in different age brackets or how many have been in the program for different lengths of time.

Relationship. You want to know if one thing is related to another, either at one point in time or overtime. Does more participation in a mental health program correlate with less distress over time? Do those with lower incomes have higher heart rates?

Once you answer this basic question, the decision tree helps you to choose a specific chart based on the type of data you have. Abela’s chart chooser includes the types of charts you are most likely to select. But there are more rare species out there. To learn more about the wide array of ways to visualize data, check out the Data Visualisation Catalog.

However, I will leave you with a word of caution. And that word is: “Xenographphobia” or fear of weird charts. It’s a thing. And you should be aware of it. Although we might like the look of sexy charts, we don’t usually have the time or patience to figure them out. So in the interest of creating a positive and productive user experience, consider sticking with the charts folks already know how to read or are self-explanatory.

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.
 

Column chart with line chart by HLD, Line Graph by Creative Stall, Pie Chart by frederick allen, Radar Chart by Agus Purwant, and sankey diagram by Rflor (from the Noun Project)

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.

Schedule A Free Consultation