is your point clear?
Have you ever found yourself staring at a graph or slide, wondering what the creator was trying to convey? Perhaps you've sat through a presentation, only to be left scratching your head, unsure of what to do next. Don’t put your audience in this same uncomfortable position. Instead, connect the dots for them to make it clear what the point is and what action they should take. When you fail to explicitly state the purpose of your communication, you run the risk of the important insight being lost, or someone arriving at the wrong conclusion.
Let's consider an example. Imagine you're a project manager looking at data comparing resource plans to the actual allocation.
This is a pretty busy slide and some of the smaller text is hard to read. The creator put this detail together to show something, but the message is getting lost in the complexity of the view.
Let’s better understand the data in the graph. FTE on the vertical axis stands for full-time equivalent, which represents the total number of full-time employees working on a project. The bars represent how many people were expected to be necessary for each project, while the lines show the reality of how many were actually required.
After some careful consideration, you might notice a number of things in the data:
The graph begins in September 2023, and it appears that the initial estimates (the bars) for that month were much lower than what occurred.
The Ascent project—represented by the yellow bars and line—stands out for having the highest number of resources.
Over the course of the year, the resource allocation looks to be decreasing.
Across the board, the actuals (per project and combined) seem to be above the plan numbers.
Which of these insights did the person who created this graph think was the most important? That, unfortunately, isn’t clear.
Let’s take some simple steps to make the most valuable messages in this visual stand out.
Spell out the takeaway
When we’ve already explored the data and discovered something worthy of sharing, that’s when we’re communicating for explanatory purposes. In doing so, we should present our findings in a manner that is obvious and understandable to someone else.
Imagine the main takeaway we want to convey is that we consistently underestimated the size of the workforce we needed over the past year. If this is ultimately what we want our audience to understand, then let’s tell them this. No need to be shy! We can spell out our point in words and put it in a prominent place. Since slide titles are often the first thing people read, putting a pithy, takeaway sentence at the top will make sure the point isn’t missed.
Now, someone reading the words on the slide above will have a good understanding of what we want them to know. Upon reading the title, they’ll likely hunt for evidence in the graph to support the statement.
Articulate an action
Now that we’ve clarified what is most important in this slide, we still need to answer a very important question: ”So what?” What do we need or want our audience to do with this data? Just as we did for our main takeaway, we can add more text to the slide to articulate the recommended action. For example, we could include a sentence at the bottom to explicitly prompt a discussion about potential next steps.
Note the power of words when paired with the data. The data will be easier for our audience to understand in context when we write out the takeaway and the recommendation for them.
One might argue that this view is a bit challenging to decipher, so let’s consider modifying the graph so that it better reinforces the text.
Iterate on the visual
It’s great that the original creator chose to visualize the data, rather than merely provide a table. Graphs often get information across more quickly. However, the dual axis and mix of lines and bars make it tough to compare the plan to the actuals. Also, with six different data series, three colors, and duplicated month abbreviations, there is a lot here to take in and keep track of all at once.
To simplify charts and graphs so they are easier to process, consider what clutter or detail could be eliminated. In this example, we might aggregate the three individual projects into one overall value. Individual project data is not necessary to make our main point, which is that the overall actuals are above plan.
Showing the total FTE plan in a single orange bar, and the actual results in a line that is plotted on the same vertical axis, makes the chart easier to consume and reinforces the slide's takeaway title.
We added an overall total row to the bottom table, but we might explore removing the table altogether, especially if the precise values and project breakdown weren’t needed. Removing the table also gives us room to make the graph more prominent and easier to read.
We could continue to iterate on the chart type by switching to an area graph to better emphasize the overage. Removing any extraneous items that are cluttering the chart, like borders and gridlines, will also make it easier to process. Adding clear axis titles and a more straightforward chart title with help our audience better understand what is being displayed.
The orange shading now draws attention to the gap between the plan and actual numbers, while the added text annotation tells the consumer of this information that the actual resources are more than one thousand FTE above the plan.
Consider the situation
For a single slide that was part of a larger presentation, the view we have now would work well. There’s clear takeaway text, annotations, and a recommendation. In a live meeting, we could easily speak to any questions or deeper levels of detail that our audience brought up.
If we were planning to send this as a standalone slide, on the other hand, we wouldn’t be there to lend context to the situation. We’d want to take care to add more text to our communication to make the story obvious and add supporting information that would be helpful for our audience. For example, if we thought the project name detail would be necessary, or expected, we might explore additional views that show the breakdown for each one. We could calculate the difference between the plan and actual numbers for each project and show that amount in a separate line graph.
As we incorporate more detail, it’s important to be thoughtful in the design and layout so it is easily scannable. When sharing a large volume of information, we can help our audience by creating discernable sections with headers and by grouping related graphs and text together.
Make it a point to explicitly include your takeaways and your recommendations in your slides, so your audience doesn’t have to guess what they’re seeing. Then, iterate on your visuals so that they work together with your text. When words and pictures support one another, it is an extremely powerful combination—not only to increase understanding, but also to elevate the likelihood that your audience will remember, and be able to recall, the message you deliver.
