Have you ever created an infographic? No? Why not? Infographics can be a fun way to deliver information to different audiences. They can also be really easy to put together. Yes? Which type? There are all sorts of different infographic styles and formats. Today’s post features highlights from one of my pro workshop sessions. During […]
Stop Reporting Like it’s 1999
Today’s post is a reflection on contemporary reporting, and how for many organizations, it looks almost identical to the approaches we used in the late 90s. In today’s post: Why I think it’s time to kill the “let’s just stick a pdf on a resource page” information sharing paradigm. What has changed in the digital […]
How to make a pie chart in Excel
This is the fourth in a series of posts on chart design in Excel. In each post we will take on a different chart type. Today we’ll go with a chart that is widely used but often maligned by chart experts, the Pie Chart. What you’ll find in this post: An Oversimplified How To How […]
How to embed Tableau dashboards, without hiding them from Google.
Okay, long story short. If you are presenting to a public audience, don’t just plop the embed code on your website. And if you don’t feel like reading about why, skip to the bottom of the page for how I would suggest you embed Tableau dashboards (and lots of other embeddable things). Short story long? […]
Find Excel Chart Formatting Annoying? Do this instead.
Ever get annoyed with formatting after you create a chart in Excel? It’s pretty easy to create a chart in Excel. A couple of button clicks and poof, there you go, chart created. But if you want to create a chart that actually looks good, you often have to do a bit more work. For […]
What you will learn if you join my workshop.
Just a note before I jump in. The pre-launch discount for my workshop expires tomorrow (9/8) at 12PM eastern. The workshop will never be cheaper! Over the years, when a colleague would take a workshop at a conference, I would ask them what they learned. And then I would ask, “was it worth the money?” […]
It’s not about the charts.
If you just want to create better charts, don’t join my workshop. I have no desire to compete with my friends Stephanie Evergreen and Ann K Emery on fundamental visual reporting and chart literacy. If you just want to code with R or Python, don’t join my workshop. Two suggestions. David Keyes for all things […]
Beyond Better Charts – My New Workshop on 21st Century Reporting
If nobody sees your amazing chart, can you still call it amazing? For data to have an impact, it needs to be the right data, reaching the right person, at the right time, and in the right format. That’s a lot that has to go right. And only a little of it has anything to […]
Why your online evaluation capacity building efforts are doomed to fail
This post was written for, and originally appeared, on AEA365. Hello my fellow evaluators. My name is Chris Lysy, and I am a freelance evaluator, designer, and trainer based in Cary, North Carolina. My consulting work involves helping organizations deal with the virtual shift (shifting programs from the “real world” to the “virtual world”). Over the […]
UX Evaluation: How to Evaluate Dashboards, Reports, and Data Visualization
Is your data dashboard useful? How do you know? Most of the time it’s a question that gets left unanswered. As if the dashboard getting created is enough, and whether or not it works is really not that important. Perhaps it’s the data idealist in me, but I think we can do better. TLDR: I […]
How to create a basic logic model [activity book]
Working with a group to create a logic model? I created a little activity book to help you on your way. Prerequisite (Before you Download) This activity book assumes that you are trying to take action and do something. Or that you’ve already taken action. If you haven’t, you’ll have to imagine yourself taking action […]
What is the difference between a Histogram and a Bar Graph?
If you want to be taken seriously as a data professional, there are some things that you just need to know. The difference between a Bar Chart and a Histogram is one of those things. This post is a little cartoon illustrated explanation of the differences. In short: the difference between a Bar Graph and […]