Just happened upon a great discussion about making data make sense quickly on the Innovation in Evaluation Blog over at good.is

What happens when we put people at the center of evaluation (as Jocelyn Wyatt puts it)? In this context, it means recognizing that people are preoccupied with more important tasks than spending long amounts of time in front of dashboards and data visualizations.

This is true in any setting, and in our case it was driving. The role of visualization should not be to demand full attention, but to support the priority task and improve it through feedback loops. The challenge is not just to display how you are doing right now, but also to figure out how you could do better. So, what does this mean for the visualization itself?

Every form of visualization should tell a story. Unfortunately there is limited attention and time to process all the stories. So the gist of the story, or its immediate impact, should be visible right away. The term I like to use for this principle is “glanceability.” What does a visualization tell us before we take time to analyze it? I invite you to look at the following chart and image for 10 seconds each and compare. What did you see? What did you feel?

Modified from Azar Askin’s reproduction of a poster by Muenster Planning Office, Germany

A followup post talks about understanding how data is presented. How can you tell what is fact and what is fiction? What basic questions should you ask of the graph? How do you know if you are being taken for a ride?

Super-cool. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go curl up with some of the other posts here – How Can We Measure What’s Most Meaningful? and In Non-Profit World, Numbers Don’t Tell the Full Story.. (something a friend of mine always used to tell me).

Read all about it! @ Innovation in Evaluation.