A good graph is worth a thousand words

One of my favourite blogs is Storytelling with data. Cole Nussbaumer from the People Analytics team at Google does a great job of explaining how we present data in a graphical manner can underline and reinforce our message.

With time, I have started doing more presentations for Boards and other top executives, as well as speaking at conferences, and find that visuals play an important role in getting the point across.

So, when I came across this graph recently (sorry… don’t remember where I found it) , I decided to write about why I like it so that hopefully  some of my readers will get some inspiration for their own graphs and analyses:

A good graph is worth a thousand words

The main points that I like :

  1. There are not too many rows in the graph so it easily readable
  2. The most important information is at the top of the page
  3. The colour coding supports the message of importance as colour fades for the less relevant criteria
  4. The graph is not cluttered with too much information

You could also use this kind of graph and make a completely different point by putting the smallest data at the top in order to highlight what a potential problem is, and lead you to the next point in your presentation which could be potential solutions to the issue.

What do you say ?

 

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  1. […] an approach similar to mine recently, here is a post showing how simple visualisations can be an effective way of identifying […]

  2. […] A good graph is worth a thousand words Copyright protected by Digiprove © 2012 Sandrine BardotSome Rights ReservedOriginal content here is published under these license terms: X License Type:Non-commercial, AttributionLicense Summary:You may copy this content, create derivative work from it, and re-publish it for non-commercial purposes, provided you include an overt attribution to the author(s).License URL:http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/ Filed Under: Compensation Communication Tagged With: Career, Communication, Compensation Communication, Compensation Strategy […]

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