One of the things I’m thankful for this year… In a sea of competing voices you’ve chosen to listen to mine. For those of you in the US, have a nice Thanksgiving! And for everyone, have a nice week 🙂
Why you should create a minimum viable visual
The infographic was not going to be a finalist in any design competition. The font was tiny. The few colors just didn’t seem to gel. It was printed small with strange dimensions. Definitely not going to find this one on any blogger’s top 100 list. But that’s out of context. Listening to the evaluator talk […]
The four words that can kill any visual project
I don’t like it. Data visualization experts love to talk about effectiveness, which chart type is better than which other chart type. And while I think the discussion can be helpful sometimes it also misses a big point. Most researchers and evaluators are not making bad visuals, they’re making no visuals (or very few visuals). […]
Featured image paradigm
Featured Image Paradigm > Every article has a picture. It’s really a simple rule, but you can look at almost any major website on almost any topic (news, sports, fashion, food, science, technology, etc., etc., etc.) and you’ll see it being followed. Even if the image for an article is not showing on the front […]
You would forgive me
It was 2 AM and I was sitting upright, head leaned off to the right on the makeshift pillow that usually serves as my jacket. The crying of a small child carried through the dark cabin as my fellow passengers and I attempted to get a little rest on the three hour flight. I felt […]
Cartooning Evaluation 2014
From Wednesday through Friday, I'll be attending the American Evaluation Association conference in Denver. As in past years, I'll be cartooning the event. This year instead of writing a string of posts, I'll be building up just one (this one). When I have a new cartoon I'll update, so feel free to share this link […]
Evaluation conference memory lane
Next week I’ll be heading out to Denver for Evaluation 2014. This will be my fourth evaluation conference. I’ve cartooned each one and this year will be no exception. For today’s post I decided to take a little walk down memory lane. Here are a few of my favorite cartoons from past conferences. To see […]
How to design your research or evaluation business website
Web design, for most researchers and evaluators I know, includes a good bit of DIY. I recently had the opportunity to work with my friend and fellow RTP evaluator Karen Peterman on an update to her business’ website design. I helped with the overall design, provided some input on the text and added a set of illustrations. Karen wrote the […]
Build a Qualitative Dashboard
Why is it that so many attempts to visualize qualitative data start by quantifying the data? Qualitative data is special because it’s deep and rich. There is huge value in learning lots about a little. But when we present that data, we often remove the richness that makes qualitative data special. Anyone who has ever […]
Easy Stackable Infographic
Here is an easy way to create an infographic using power point. This time for web publication. If you publish a set of images stacked on top of one another they appear as a single image. So to create an infographic, just create a series of slides with alternating background colors and export as images. This […]
Building an Alternate Index Infographic
There is no single way to create an infographic. Styles depend greatly on the content, audience and purpose. Today’s post is the first in a longer series focused on practical data visualization. Each post will cover a different style of visualization that attempts to solve a specific problem. You have many audiences Funders, politicians, researchers, […]
What is school for? 5 cartoons
We’re not spending nearly enough time asking each other: What is School For?-Seth Godin My daughter started kindergarten recently. So if you’ve noticed that my posting schedule’s been thrown off or that I’ve seemed a little frazzled as of late, this is definitely a contributing factor. I really disliked school. Or, to dis-aggregate, I was OK with elementary, […]