5 Rules of Effective Charting: Rules 3-5

Quick reference

• 00:04 Rule number three of our five charting rules is to make your story a short story.
• 00:10 What this means,
• 00:11 is that you really wanna focus on the story that your chart is trying to tell.
• 00:16 Don't put too much data into it.
• 00:19 I worked with a guy and this was his famous thing,
• 00:21 he'd go, just add one more series.
• 00:22 That's kind of like adding one more column to the financial statement report
• 00:27 that nobody's gonna read.
• 00:28 Too much information makes it too hard to see, so just don't do it.
• 00:32 Don't use too many series in your data setup, because it becomes overwhelming.
• 00:38 Rule number four, is avoiding chart junk and noise.
• 00:41 And I wanna illustrate this with a little story.
• 00:44 So I have a daughter, she played soccer.
• 00:47 Now we would go out, her and I, to the field and
• 00:49 we would start working on simulating game time pressure.
• 00:51 And there's a call when you play soccer or football if you prefer,
• 00:55 it's called man on.
• 00:57 And when you yell man on,
• 00:59 the person with the ball has to make one of three decisions.
• 01:02 They're either gonna pass, they're gonna shoot, or they're gonna dribble.
• 01:04 Those are the only three things that you can actually do when you're playing
• 01:07 football or soccer, you need to make an action.
• 01:09 Holding on to the ball, means that someone can take it from you, you're done.
• 01:13 So when it's just myself and my daughter, things go really well, I mean I call for
• 01:18 it in a nice loud volume, she passes me the ball or she shoots or the dribbles,
• 01:21 whatever she decides to do.
• 01:23 So now let's fast forward to soccer practice.
• 01:26 I'm coaching the team, but we've got a few more kids that are out there and
• 01:30 we've got an assistant coach as well.
• 01:31 So now we've got a bunch more kids, there's yelling,
• 01:33 there's things going on in the field.
• 01:34 And when I yell man on what happens?
• 01:38 Well, once again she's gonna make her decision,
• 01:40 cuz the coach has got a pretty loud voice.
• 01:41 Everything's the same, but there is more competing for her attention.
• 01:47 Now I wanna fast forward to game day.
• 01:49 Well, game day things change.
• 01:50 We've got two teams on the field, we've got coaches from both sides, and
• 01:54 we've got a whole bunch of parents that are actually out on the field as well,
• 01:58 and grandparents,
• 01:58 and they're all yelling helpful things that are confusing and whatnot.
• 02:02 And maybe they're not hearing that term.
• 02:04 But I guess the question that really comes down to me is,
• 02:07 is my message any different?
• 02:09 Is the volume any different?
• 02:11 Is the noise any different?
• 02:12 And the noise if definitely different.
• 02:14 There's a lot more things competing for the attention of the person with the ball.
• 02:19 Now I wanna focus and I wanna move forward one more step to where maybe we've
• 02:23 actually got our dream and we've moved on.
• 02:26 And now shes playing at a really high level, in a massive stadium, and
• 02:29 there's 20,000 fans and there's lights and there's flashing things going on.
• 02:34 And buzzers and a huge amount of crowd fan noise, and whatnot.
• 02:37 And the question comes down to when I yell, what is she hear?
• 02:41 And the answer is probably very little, because there's so
• 02:45 much extra stuff going on, and this is a challenge.
• 02:49 If you look at the slides as they built up here,
• 02:51 you'll notice that nothing's changed.
• 02:53 That players in the same spot, the manager's in the same spot,
• 02:56 the call is the same, the volume is the same, but it's the noise that's in
• 02:59 the peripheral that's actually made a big, big difference.
• 03:02 And the same thing, all of this stuff that's competing for
• 03:05 this attention, this is absolutely true with your charts.
• 03:10 The more stuff that you put into your system, the more it confuses the story.
• 03:16 So for that reason,
• 03:17 we actually go through the process of removing unnecessary elements.
• 03:22 Always skip things like 3D, they add angles and
• 03:24 distortion that really confuse our brains and just don't work.
• 03:28 Chart junk and noise, these are all extra elements that confuse and
• 03:32 distort the story.
• 03:33 Sometimes that happens intentionally, and
• 03:35 I hope you're not a person that ever does that.
• 03:36 Because you know what?
• 03:37 We are actually in the capability here to create corporate propaganda if we use this
• 03:41 properly.
• 03:42 So we wanna use our powers for good.
• 03:45 The key thing that I want you to remember with charts is always that every chart you
• 03:49 make should be customized to show your data in the best way possible to get
• 03:53 across the story that you want, get rid of the elements you don't need.
• 03:56 Add stuff that's important, but don't put too much stuff in.
• 04:00 The more you have, the more it competes for your attention and
• 04:03 that's not what we actually want.
• 04:06 Rule five of my five rules for working with charts,
• 04:09 building effective charts to always review what you've built.
• 04:12 And if you remember, we go back to that quote from Ashley Brilliant about
• 04:15 the audience being a failure.
• 04:16 The question that we have to ask, we have gotta take a good look into the mirror
• 04:21 after we've poured our heart and soul into building our chart and
• 04:24 ask, does it really tell the story that we intend to tell?
• 04:28 Could we have picked a better chart type to do this?
• 04:31 Is it self-explanatory?
• 04:32 Meaning, you've all heard the lovely expression about a picture should be worth
• 04:37 a 1000 words, that should also apply to your charts.
• 04:40 You should not need to use 1,000 words to describe your charts.
• 04:44 Is there anything that you can review to make your chart more effective and
• 04:48 get your story across in a better way?
• 04:51 This is hard, because this is the humble part of doing this job.
• 04:55 If you do your job well,
• 04:57 your audience will spend less than 10 seconds consuming your chart, and that
• 05:01 could be really depressing after you've put hours into getting it exactly right.
• 05:05 But if you've done that well and your manager can get in,
• 05:07 see that the business is in control and get out or get in,
• 05:10 see if it's out of control so they can go and chase the real problem?
• 05:14 That is where you've made your chart a success.

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