Back in 2006 I was in grad school. At the time I lived and worked full time in the Maryland suburbs outside of DC. A few times a week, I would take the Metro from the end of the line to …
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 …
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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 …
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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 …
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 …
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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 …