Hi Reader,

Figures can be so powerful, when we get them right and think beyond the standard ones.

I have many tips (and I'm sharing many of these on LinkedIn currently) but my best one is: Start sketching your data visualisations using pen and paper!

If you are directly getting into a software like R, excel or powerpoint, you create several problems.

1. You will restrict yourself to those things, you can already do with the software.

2. You will accept default settings of your software without consciously thinking about them.

3. You will invest a lot of time into each single draft, which creates the bias of sunken cost. Once you have crafted a data visualisation spending hours, you are less likely to delete it and start over to create something better

If you start with pen and paper instead, you can draft many different data visualisations and then choose a good one easily sending the rest to the bin.

There’s some magic with pen and pencil that we can create whatever we like easily. There are hardly any boundaries, and we can easily imagine new ways of visualising data, which we have never thought about before.

Many data visualisation gurus use these simple tools as a starting place.

Learn from them and do the same.

If you want to learn more such tips for improving your data visualisations and especially also the underlying principles of great data visualisations, register for one of the upcoming workshops I’m offering next week.

Check the link in the comments here learn more about these.

​https://theeffectivestatistician.com/create-better-data-visualisations/​

Ciao and be an effective statistician!

Alexander

PS - feel free to share this workshop with your colleagues - also with those outside of statistics departments. It will make your life easier!