For design students, early-career designers and practitioners building a more deliberate process. Use individually or in a facilitated workshop. The example is illustrative; adapt the method to your context.
Work through the activity
01 · Define the question
Write what the audience needs to compare, locate or understand. State where the data came from, the period it covers and its limitations.
02 · Inspect the data
Identify units, missing values, categories, sample size and uncertainty. Record transformations and keep a path back to the source.
03 · Choose an encoding
Match the question to position, length, area, colour or text. Compare two chart approaches and explain why one supports the task better.
04 · Audit honesty and access
Check scales, baselines, labels, units, colour contrast and reliance on colour alone. Provide a text takeaway and a data table or equivalent accessible alternative.
05 · Test comprehension
Ask someone to describe the key comparison and its uncertainty. Record misreadings, revise one encoding or annotation, and state what the chart cannot establish.
Worked example
Illustrative workshop example: a small synthetic dataset compares travel times across modes. A bar chart with units and a table communicates the comparison; the designer does not imply the data represents a whole city.
Paid worksheet
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Includes the PDF worksheet and the branded editable HTML version, sent to you by email once access is arranged.
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Your first 15 minutes
Write one audience question and list the units, missing values and limitations of a small dataset.
Come back in seven days
Once you have the worksheet, bring what you made and what happened. Review your evidence, record one change, and choose your next exercise.
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