Data Visualization Best Practices

Location:  Frisco 3, 4, & 5

Speaker:  Ashley Kizzire – Advancing Organizational Excellence (aoe)

Presentation Description

When used properly, charts and graphs are a very effective way to communicate data. However, simple missteps in design can muddle your data, weaken your message and confuse your audience. Avoid common mistakes by following best practices to ensure that your message is heard – loud and clear!

You’ve been tasked with making a presentation on some important business figures – financial updates, results of marketing efforts or other key data – and rather than create text-heavy slides with lists of numbers, you know that putting the data into a graphical format will be more interesting and visually appealing to your audience. When used properly, charts and graphs are a very effective way to communicate data. However, simple missteps in design can muddle your data, weaken your message and confuse your audience. Avoid common mistakes by following these best practices to ensure that your message is heard loud – and clear!

Learning objectives for this presentation include:

1. Understand the importance of background information and knowing who your audience is before developing your presentation. Having that information can drastically change the direction your presentation will take.
2. Understand the importance of choosing the right visuals for your presentation
3. Understand the importance of focusing your audience’s attention on your data and the best ways to accomplish this
4. Understand the importance of designing presentations and visuals for all audience members – including those who may be colorblind. We will discuss how using some color combinations together, such as red and green, in the same chart or graph might be difficult for some folks to interpret. In this presentation, we will discuss which colors are colorblind-friendly alternatives to make your presentation accessible to a wider audience.

Following the rules of data visualization will help you create charts and graphs that are trustworthy, unambiguous and persuasive. In turn, they will convey your data in a much more powerful way.

Speaker Bio
As Vice President of Marketing at AOE, Ashley helps clients plan and implement communications strategies to reach their target audiences. In addition, Ashley is responsible for achieving AOE’s objectives related to marketing, client referral strategy and implementation, branding, and team member development regarding client relations.