cplysy

Mar 27 2023

Review: Stefanie Posavec’s “Dataviz Drawing Class”

Last month, I participated in Stefanie Posavec’s Dataviz Drawing Class.

I LOVED the class!

Wondering whether the class is right for you?

What’s inside this review:

Class logistics
Why I signed up
About the instructor
What we learned
Who this class is best for
My favorite part
Learn more

Class Logistics

A dozen of us met for two half-day classes held over Zoom. This was the perfect length: a half-day of dataviz principles and quick drawing exercises, followed by a half-day focused on a bigger project.

Participants were mostly based in the U.S. and Europe, with most people using data for part/all of their job.

We used an online whiteboard tool, Miro, to introduce ourselves and share our drawings. There was a small learning curve, but then it was easy to snap photos of my hand-drawn images and upload them to the site.

Stefanie also sent us a supply list a couple weeks in advance. She said we needed a spreadsheet tool (Excel, Sheets, etc.) and some basic art supplies (e.g., plain paper, black crayon, colored pencils, etc.). There weren’t any specialty art supplies needed; these were all supplies that you’d have laying around your home somewhere.

Why I Signed Up

My own dataviz consulting and training is spreadsheety and linear—almost to a fault.

I don’t think it’s helpful for any of us to work within silos.

I wanted to think about dataviz from a different lens—drawing!

Sure, I could read one of Stefanie’s books.

Sure, she probably has public-facing talks on YouTube.

But nothing compares to quality online training where your brain is fully immersed in the topic alongside the instructor and peers.

About the Instructor: Stefanie Posavec

According to Stefanie’s website, she is “a designer, artist, and author exploring experimental approaches to communicating data and information to all ages and audiences.”

Her projects “might be wearable, danceable, or hoppable, be found in hospitals, museums, or on television, and will often use a human-scaled, hand-crafted design process.”

I first heard of Stefanie Posavec after she wrote Dear Data with Giorgia Lupi.

Then, I fell in love with I am a Book, I am a Portal to the Universe.

Day 1: Dataviz Basics + Data Drawing Challenges

Here’s what we learned and practiced each day.

Data Visualization Basics

The first hour was an intro to dataviz, including:

seven data visualization variables,
Gestalt principles, and
preattentive processing.

I took detailed notes, but won’t be sharing them here for obvious reasons. You’ll have to take her class to learn more.

Stefanie had examples from a variety of artists (e.g., Sol LeWitt) and historical figures (e.g., William Playfair). Every dataviz person is familiar with Playfair, but the rest were new, and I loved learning about more artists.

9 Dataviz Drawing Exercises

For the next few hours, Stefanie gave us drawing exercises.

Again, I won’t be describing the exercises in detail.

Here’s what I made:

After each exercise, we shared our drawings on our webcams so we could learn from each other.

I was pleasantly surprised that everyone kept their webcams on!

Usually, I’m the only one with my webcam on. In Stefanie’s class, I was the only one with my webcam off (because I was walking on the treadmill while sketching). Then, I’d turn my webcam back on to share my drawings.

Day 2: Musician Challenge

On the second day, Stefanie gave us a public dataset to work with.

She guided us through how to approach data as a designer, like understanding which type(s) of variables we’re working with (categories, rating scales, binary data, etc.).

Here are my glyphs (new terminology and new approach to dataviz design for me):

Then, we had ~50 minutes to arrange the glyphs with an underlying architecture (e.g., a circle, spiral, clusters, etc.).

The underlying architecture was a massive a-ha for me! The structure really differentiates linear, predictable dashboards from exploratory, artistic visualizations.

We posted in-progress drafts to the Miro board as we worked, and Stefanie provided helpful feedback.

Since I’d been working with paper and pencil for a while, I was ready to switch to computer-drawn graphics. I was probably supposed to continue drawing, but… realistically, all of my client projects have to be done in everyday software like Excel, since that’s the common denominator for all my clients. I had to make sure I could actually implement my sketched ideas in Microsoft tools.

Here are some of my drafts, which were made in good ol’ Excel. (These are just bubble charts with icon fills, outline colors, and outline patterns.)

First, I tried arranging musicians by time and gender, and I started drawing the key. Don’t look too close – I had genre typos in this one, which I fixed later.

Then, I dropped the gender variable, and focused on the timeline (a.k.a. a column chart).

The timeline effectively showed how most of the top-selling artists are from the 2000s.

But, this one felt empty; I could’ve placed another variable on the y-axis.

That’s a lot within 50 minutes!

I was pleasantly surprised how much I could figure out, both design-wise and software-wise, in less than an hour. I can’t remember the last time I nearly-finished an entire non-traditional viz like this so quickly! I was on my treadmill, walking 10 miles during each of the classes, so my brain was definitely on Beast Mode.

After class, I spent another hour arranging the glyphs by the musicians’ birth country. I wanted to show how most of the top-selling artists are from the U.S. and Canada.

I didn’t spend time to make sure the glyphs didn’t overlap.

(Remember, this is an Excel bubble chart, so I’m manually assigning each artist an x and y value behind the scenes.)

At some point, you have to call it quits on just-for-fun dataviz.

Time permitting, I would’ve:

represented gender with shapes (circles vs. squares) instead of colors (to make it colorblind-friendly);
continued fiddling with the artists’ placements on the map so they didn’t overlap so much;
added a second outline/ring to the artists coming after 2000, and kept the single ring for the artists pre-2000;
added the artists’ photos (the icons are placeholders); and
shaded the background of each photo according to… something? (Imagine a light-dark shading as the background color behind their headshots.)

Who This Class is Best For

Stefanie described the focus as:

People who are creating or inventing data visualizations (me!)
People who want to move beyond the standard chart types (me!)

Well, it was for me, but not really.

I knew I’d be the only full-time dataviz instructor.

I think I was the only one who made datavizzes as the major focus of my job (?). Other students seemed to make graphs, dashboards, and infographics as a piece of their job, but not as the focus. One participant had just finished undergrad.

After listening to others’ questions—Which chart should I use? How exactly do I get started??—I think this class is best suited for people who already have prior data visualization training.

This isn’t the class to learn about data analysis, like how to merge datasets, clean data, recode variables, or calculate frequencies or descriptive statistics. The participants I chatted with in breakout rooms already had those skills from their data-focused jobs.

This isn’t the class to learn the difference between chart types, like a scatter plot vs. bubble chart, or a histogram vs. a population pyramid. Stefanie provided an overview of chart types, but chart types are so nuanced that they deserve an entire class of their own.

This isn’t the time to learn color nuances, like the difference between sequential, diverging, and categorical color palettes. Again, Stefanie provided an overview, but colors deserve an hour or two on their own.

This isn’t a class to learn about Big A Accessibility (like 508 compliance, colorblindness, etc.) or to learn about Small A Accessibility (making sure graphs are easy to understand). This was tricky for me—accessibility is woven into every aspect of my work, and I kicked myself as I drew non-colorblind-friendly graphics and made my own vizzes harder to decipher just for creativity’s sake.

This isn’t the class to learn any software how-to’s. You’ll be working with paper, crayons, colored pencils, and markers. I opted to work in Excel the last hour. Another student pulled up Illustrator.

Instead, this is a class to help you think past the common chart types that are available in our everyday software programs. (“I’m having trouble thinking outside PowerPoint’s charts!” mentioned a few fellow students.)

This is a class to help you think about individual data points (glyphs) within the underlying architecture. I don’t think I’ve ever approached a project from the lens! I’ll likely use this approach from now on.

This is a class to help you approach a brand new dataset and start graphing. These skills are essential for everyone working in data.

This is a class to practice conceptualizing your ideas on paper first, which is a critical planning step that’ll make all your visualizations stronger. There’s nothing worse than sitting down to your computer without hand-sketching first. Computer-first vizzes are never as good as sketched-first vizzes.

My Favorite Part

So much hands-on learning time!

About half the first day, and nearly the entire second day, were spent drawing and drafting visualizations.

For a busy consultant like me, it’s tough to devote time to learning and sketching for my own skill-building. I loved loved loved having dedicated time with others to practice my craft.

I like to lie to myself and pretend that I can set aside time for learning, but I can’t. That’s what dedicated classes like this are for.

Learn More

I asked Stefanie when she’s offering the class next. Possibly in June 2023! Follow Stefanie Posavec on LinkedIn to hear about the next class.

Mar 22 2023

Should We Have a Role in This Partnership?

There’s more than enough work to go around. A habit I’ve picked up from an evaluation colleague is referring prospective clients to other colleagues who may be a better fit, even if I’m interested in the project. I do this as I’d rather an organization choose the best person for their needs, rather than solely […]

The post Should We Have a Role in This Partnership? appeared first on Nicole Clark Consulting.

Mar 22 2023

Good Intentions, Bad Websites

Dear research and evaluation community, we have a website problem.

The problem? Many of our websites suck.

I’m talking about resource sites, toolkits, organization homepages, project websites, communities of practice, association sites, learning communities, online reports, etc…

As an evaluator who has been developing websites personally and professionally for 15 years now, I wanted to use this post to share some of the website issues common in our field.

Issue 1: Someone else’s problem

Who takes ownership over your organization website’s content?

It seems like a simple question, but there is probably not an easy answer. A lot of organizations have someone who is responsible for the technical side of the website. They might also have someone responsible for social media or marketing. But as for overall content…

Often individual groups are responsible for their own content. There is some kind of bureaucratic process they use to submit content for publication on the website. The tech people make sure it functions. But nobody checks to see if it works.

Issue 2: Beautiful ghost towns

Just because your website looks like a well-designed website doesn’t mean it is well-designed.

You can have a website that looks beautiful with fancy features. You might even get complements on how cool it looks. But building something beautiful isn’t the same thing as building something effective.

Can you tell the difference?

Issue 3: Check the box websites.

This kind of website is all over the place in the evaluation world. It includes all sorts of resource websites, association websites, and digital toolkits.

It’s kind of like building a school curriculum based on what you think kids should learn, but then never checking to see whether or not they’ve learned anything.

You have a checklist of all the things you think should be part of the site. And then you build the site with all of those things. Then you never look at it again.

Issue 4: Owning a search.

How do you think people find your website?

Most of the time, it probably involves Google.

How do people use Google?

They search for stuff.

What do they search on Google to bring them to your page?

Serious question, have you checked to see if that actually happens? Pretty sure most organizations would be surprised to see the searches that do or do not bring people to their websites.

Issue 5: Output focused.

Evaluators are really good at calling out programs for focusing too much on outputs and not enough on outcomes.

But then you ask them to evaluate a website and they give you page views, downloads, plays, and other output data. In other words, a bunch of who cares vanity metrics.

The problem is that determining good outcome measures requires a thoughtful digital strategy. And much of the time, that just doesn’t exist.

What to do about it.

Four steps.

Develop an outcome focused digital strategy.
Implement the digital strategy.
Evaluate the effectiveness of the digital strategy.
Iterate your strategy based on collected data.

Want help?

You might know me for this blog or for my cartoons. But digital strategy and digital evaluation is the stuff I do as a consultant. I have a big contract ending this summer, and so some of my time might be opening up.

If you want to learn more about me or my digital strategy consulting, check out my about page.

If you have any interest in working with me, let’s chat > https://calendly.com/clysy/30min

Mar 15 2023

Designing an Executive Summary with Canva

Design is a process. So is creativity. In today’s post I’ll walk you through the process I would use to design an executive summary style report using Canva.

Step 1. Simple Mini Personas

Take a notecard and draw a little picture of a person. Don’t worry about the art, stick figures are fine. Then give them a little quote as if they are talking directly to you, the report designer telling you what they would like to read.

I used to have a more involved process for personas in the past, but simple is easy and easy is more likely not to be skipped.

Step 2. Pick a Type of Report

So I titled this post as designing an executive summary. But here’s the thing, there are other options that you could use to reach the same audience with the same types of information.

An executive summary is pretty status quo, so is a presentation. But something like a slidedoc, blog post, or long email could fulfill the same purpose. And they also might be more likely to be read.

For the sake of this blog post, let’s pretend you work in a fairly old-fashioned organization who balk at something beyond the status quo. And at least at the moment, you’re not in the mood to ruffle feathers.

Step 3. Peruse Existing Canva Templates

Yes, this step happens before you start writing.

You can search reports, but you can also put in other search terms that might get you closer to the kind of report you want to write. Our goal here is not to settle on our final report style, but find a report style that just feels right for the audience we are trying to reach.

I found nice sets of templates Canva has in their library on building out SDG Progress Reports. There are bunch here to choose from and they work really well as basic templates for evaluation reports.

Clicking on a template will show you the different page layouts offered at the start.

I have seen executive summaries that are 2 pages, 4 pages, 6 pages, and some that are far longer. For most situations though I suggest going as short as possible but still delivering your key insights.

Step 4. Build a Basic Report Spread.

Given the shorter format, you’ll likely only need a few of the pages inside the spread. Since we are talking a super short report, you will likely NOT use a title page or table of contents. Instead you’ll choose a few of the more heavier content pages.

Let’s say we are creating a 4 page executive summary. You think this should give you enough room to say what you need to say. Using the base template page layouts, choose 4 that feel the way you want your report to look.

The title page for your Executive Summary should have space for a title, a sub title, some narrative, and picture or chart.

Step 5. Open up Word or Google Docs

Canva is a better design tool than word processor. For the writing part you’re better working in a program designed for writing.

The difference between this process and most other report writing processes is that we have a goal in mind. Based on template you chose, you have a basic idea of how many words you can write on each page.

If you write lots more, or lots less, this will change the look of the report. In other words, it will break the template. If that’s your choice, do this intentionally. You might even want to reconfigure your report design to make sure it still works for the text you are writing.

Step 6. Fill your Template with your Words

Okay, now it’s time to fill your template. This will probably involve a bit of redesign and tweaking, but you’re going to be in far better shape than if you had just started this whole process with a draft in Word.

I’d suggest sharing as a standard PDF. But you can also download as a PowerPoint if you need to codesign the final document with others on your team.

Want to learn more about my reporting approach?

I have a free eBook for that. You’ll also find other free goodies in my resource library.

Mar 14 2023

Try This: Move Away from Funder-Driven Evaluation

Try this out and let me know how it goes for you. I was a panelist on a recent webinar, discussing community and structural interventions to support maternal health equity. During the conversation, I shared one of the struggles I have as an evaluator: Evaluation is used to meet funder expectations, instead of serving as […]

The post Try This: Move Away from Funder-Driven Evaluation appeared first on Nicole Clark Consulting.