For the past 5 or so years Canva has been my go to tool for all sorts of everyday designs. This includes the presentations that I used to design in PowerPoint. Why Canva? Because I find the workflow easier. I can quickly adapt my presentations into other formats like videos or infographics. I also have […]
Report Like This, my new FREE masterclass.
I’ve been thinking about writing a new book, but while you wait on that, I created a free masterclass. Modern report design isn’t harder than the old way, it’s just different. In this free masterclass I’ll teach you my approach. The masterclass is short (it’s a single video course that’s under 15 minutes). I also […]
If you must use a PDF, at least make it widescreen.
My first piece of advice, stop using PDFs to share your reports. Now I know that 95% of you will not follow that advice. Even if PDFs are shown to be unfit for human consumption, they are still the status quo reporting tool for most organizations. (For the very few of you who will consider […]
Don’t panic! Just draw more cartoons.
Don’t Panic. When I was a kid, I remember really enjoying The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. It was my kind of weird and short enough that kid me actually read the whole thing. In many of the more relaxed civilizations on the Outer Eastern Rim of the Galaxy, the Hitch-Hiker’s Guide has already supplanted […]
You should build an audience, before you write your report.
Time for another report design mindset change. At the most basic level successful communication requires a sender, a message, and a receiver. You, as the report designer, are the sender. The report carries the message. So who is the receiver? For a lot of organizations the receiver is hypothetical. At least for those wishing to […]
Stop Creating Spork Reports
What is a spork report? I want you to imagine visiting a nice little cafe for a light lunch. You decide to order a simple salad and a cup of soup. When the meal shows up, what utensils will you use to eat your food? Easy, right? A fork for your salad and a spoon […]
How long does it take to read a report?
Page count is a somewhat useless measure. When I was young, every once and awhile a teacher would allow us to bring in a “cheat sheet” to use when taking a test. I would write in tiny script so that I could fit a ton on that single page. (sidenote: It was definitely a trick, […]
The 5 Stages of Wasted Data
So how do you waste data? I’ve decided to start the year by really digging into my own report design process. My hope is to eventually create a set of tools that can be used to help guide the review of an organization’s reporting strategy. Part of that review will be very user centric. But […]
Because Evidence Matters
I spent a large portion of yesterday writing a blog post that I don’t think I will ever publish. It started with a chat about creative burnout and then kind of went off the rails a bit. Truth is, I’ve been feeling really pessimistic lately. About the current state of society and the actual merits […]
What is adult learning, and its role in evaluation?
This week’s post was written by Chantal Hoff. Chantal is an epidemiologist by training, who works as an evaluator and Senior Consultant at Data+Soul Research. You can learn more about Chantal on LinkedIn and about Data+Soul Research on their website. How it started: Enthusiasm for evaluation. At the end of my first year of my […]
How to open a PDF in Canva (3 simple ways).
Did you know that you can open a PDF using Canva? For years and years, the PDF has been the status quo way to share any kind of research or evaluation report. I think that’s changing a little as organizations push for more accessible formats (like what I offer through ReportPress), but there are still […]
It’s not enough to know.
Evaluation is a systematic process to determine merit, worth, value or significance… But then what? Let’s say you followed a systematic process and came to some conclusions about the value of a program. Your evidence shows that this particular program *doesn’t work so well. What comes next? It’s pretty unlikely that your work is completed […]