This week we’re posting the second video summarizing what we’ve learned to date from our research into Data Visualization and the cognitive psychology behind how we best absorb visual information. If you didn’t catch last week’s you can view that here.

We hope you find them useful!

We’ve done quite a bit of research over the last few years into data visualization best practices, and the cognitive psychology of how people best absorb visual information. This two-part series is to summarize what we’ve learned so far, in an effort to help our audience be better communicators, and to foster conversation around making good charts in the planning community.

We hope you find it useful!

If this piques your interest, here is some continuing ed.

One thing we’ve talked a lot about in the last year is that creating your visuals in planning (data visualization and plan communications) is a very specific area of study, and discipline.

photo credit: menshealth.com

Communications in business, generally, should be designed for optimal readability by their audience, to cut risk. Miscommunication in business is bad. This means we need to actually put some think-time and design-work into our plan-related communications.

If you and your organization haven’t circled back around just yet, to make sure you’re doing it right, this article might help give you some food for thought on how to retroactively initiate a design phase. Continue reading →