Presenting Data Effectively [Book Review]
By: Kristin Hunter-Thomson
Stephanie Evergreen's’ “Presenting Data Effectively” (2018)
You have put in the time to work through your data and find the story…now what?
What are some easy things that we all can do to make our communication with data work better and move off of the defaults?
I highly recommend reading the wonderful insights and strategies shared by Stephanie Evergreen in her Second Edition “Presenting Data Effectively” (2018)!
Starting with a quick, and ever-more relevant today, justification for why taking the time to present your data well is crucial, she then breaks down the process into four main categories to focus on:
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Graphics
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Text
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Color
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Arrangement
Each Chapter includes clearly identifies “Guiding Ideas” that you can use a quick reference check to make sure you are leveraging your data communication as effectively as possible. There are multiple examples and step-by-step stories for how to accomplish the tasks. Throughout there are many personal anecdotes of how Stephanie has learned from her own missteps and helped others to be more effective in presenting their data. Not only does each Chapter have a summary of the “Bottom Line” and “Key Points to Remember”, but there are numerous resources for how to dive into the subject matter more, and what I have found most helpful a list of suggested tasks to try to apply the techniques and strategies. Stephanie provides a great balance of both the why to present effectively with a lot of how to do it and bring it into your own work.
Regardless of how you are presenting your data in —reports, slideshows, handouts, posters, dashboards, or any other way of presenting data on a page or screen — there are helpful tips and tricks in her for everyone. With a handful of simple things to look out for, we can all be empowered to move off of the horrible defaults and templates of our programs and start to make our data visualizations look professional and be effective!
While the book is written by a professional data visualizer and evaluator, and thus many of the examples are grounded in corporate contexts, the content is accessible for any adult as well as for students in grades 8-12.
