Monthly Archives: November 2017

10 Things You Can, But Should NEVER Do In OnePager – #2

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This is the second post in a series that highlights the OnePager mistakes we see most often in our support interactions. These are mistakes that we wish we could help everyone avoid, and do the right way instead.

2 – Manually Dragging Shapes Up and Down In Your Chart

courtesy: missouribusiness.net

The wrong way…

We allow you to do this, and there are many cases where you can’t avoid it. But, as we constantly state, if you can make your visuals data-driven, you should!

For manual manipulation of the vertical location of your shapes:

  1. Click on a shape and drag it up or down in your mouse
  2. Select one or more shapes using your mouse and then use your arrow keys to move them up and down

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10 Things You Can, But Should NEVER Do In OnePager – #1

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Sorry…we know this has nothing to do with the article except, maybe, “skin the cat,” but hey, the internet loves kittens, so why not? Photo cred: metro.co.uk

We give you lots and lots (and lots) of flexibility to accomplish certain things in your OnePager charts. This flexibility usually gives you a variety of ways to “skin the cat.” But, like most things, there is usually a right way and a wrong way to achieve the desired results.

Over the next 10 or so weeks, we’ll highlight the mistakes we see most often in our support interactions that we wish we could help everyone avoid, and do the right way instead:

1 – Changing Colors Manually Continue reading →

Review: “The Big Book of Dashboards”

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Over the years, I have received countless requests from novice users to have me help them make their visuals look “pretty.” Pretty, as we know from studying data visualization best practices, has absolutely nothing to do with a good chart.

That said, after you’ve simplified your report, balanced your data ink, and eliminated any chart-junk, it can be a valuable exercise to attempt to achieve elegance in your visual design through some harmonic use of shapes, color, white space, font, etc.

Some people just have this gift: the artistic ability to use the elements they have available in a very eye-pleasing way. The rest of us need examples to follow, and for this, “The Big Book of Dashboards” provides plenty of inspiration.

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