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Graphic showing the Data Story Mandate: When explaining data with words, you must tell stories that are correct, reliable, and meaningful. Source: Nineteen Insights.
Everyone has told a data story at some point. But almost no one has been trained how. The Data Story Mandate can help.
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Screenshot of the Berlin Founders Fund Masterclass webinar titled “How Data Drives Your Success.” Source: Berlin Founder Fund.
Want lots of detail on best practices for creating, depicting, and explaining data? Look no further.
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Screenshot of a single-select survey question asking “What time of day do you plan to shop online in July?” Possibly answers include “6am-9am,” “9am-noon,” and “Noon-3pm.”
I hate to lie. And I really hate it when surveys give me no other option.
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Screenshot of social poll asking “How often do you talk about AI in your workplace?” The answer options are: Always, Sometimes, Rarely, and Never. Source: LinkedIn.
If your answers don’t match your question, you can’t get good data. But there’s an easy trick to make sure they do.
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A pie chart designed from a cut-up pork pie, showing slices for “Partygate inquiry,” “Revolting Tory MPs,” and “End of COVID rules.” The chart doesn’t apparently contain any data, just political arguments. Source: The Sun.
You can’t make a data visualization with actual data. Or at least, you shouldn’t. The Sun shows us why not.
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Twitter poll asking “Favorite Wes Anderson film?” Response options are: “The Grand Budapest Hotel,” “Rushmore,” “Love them all,” and “Hate them all.” Source: Twitter.
To get the best survey data, make sure you investigate one idea at a time. Often that means asking two questions rather than one.
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Email from web hosting company Media Temple saying “Thank you for being a Media Temple champion,” then asking customers about their satisfaction. Source: Media Temple.
There a lots of ways surveys bias their respondents, intentionally or not. Make sure to avoid them.
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Screenshot of poll asking what time people start their morning: “3-4 am,” “4-5 am,” “6-7 am,” or “5 mins before I have to.” Source: LinkedIn.
The biggest problem with most survey and poll questions? They’re not “MECE.”
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Chart showing that people read area-based pie charts as accurately as traditional pie charts, but make large errors when estimating angles. Source: eagereyes YouTube channel.
Research shows that square pie charts work great and that visual weight really matters.
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Screenshot of a LinkedIn poll asking “Do you invest in crypto?” Answers include: “For sure!,” “Just to fool around,” “Would love to but am hesitant,” and “Hell no.” Source: LinkedIn.
Social media is awash in surveys and polls. Most of them suck. But they don’t need to.
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A pie chart in which every slice is a different height; some slices are more than 5 times taller than other slices. Source: Unnamed Nineteen Insights client.
Last week, data graphics tool Infogram tricked one of my clients into making the worst pie chart I’ve ever seen.
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Square pie chart showing carbon emissions by country in 2017. Source: OurWorldInData.org | CC-BY.
Companies commit awful sins when they create round pie charts. Square pie charts offer several advantages.
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Florence Nightingale’s “rose diagram,” two modified pie charts showing deaths in the British Army during the Crimean War.
Florence Nightingale wasn’t just a nurse; she was a data geek who used charts as a weapon.
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Seven bar charts with almost no labels. Image source: Sprinklr blog
Sprinklr thoroughly violated the Golden Rule of Charts and Graphs — then asked The Good Data Project for advice.
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Data table with some cells highlighted. Source: Gartner, “7 Key Marketing Channel Shifts as Marketing Budgets Shrink.”
The research firm mislabeled its own data table — and then made a 2-point difference appear bigger than a 15-point difference.
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A “bar chart” that uses bubbles in place of bars. Source: Salesforce.
Done well, creative graphics can bring ideas to life. Done poorly, creative graphics can make it impossible for readers to understand the facts.
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BuzzSumo bar chart without data labels. Image source: Brandwatch/BuzzSumo.
Adding labels to your data isn’t just a meaningless rule; it’s essential to a chart’s very purpose.
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Facebook chart titled “Teens who struggle with mental health say Instagram makes it worse.” Image source: Wall Street Journal.
Few companies make better data graphics than Facebook. But few companies violate the golden rule more often.
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A sample pie chart with two slices: 36.0% and 64.0%. Source: The Good Data Project.
If you want to include decimals in your charts and graphs, make sure you have a good reason. Because most of the time they just get in the way.
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Line chart of deaths per day due to Covid-19 in British Columbia. Image source: CBC.
You can find a lot of bad data graphics about Covid-19. Fortunately, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation has made some very good ones.
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