Data Visualization

In addition to the holidays, you’ve got a very good reason for rejoicing. The Tobacco Control Evaluation Center is excited to launch a brand-new resource created just for you: the Data Viz Idea Lab—a collection of over 50 data visualization and graphic design templates and examples that you can adapt for your own needs.

Creating a data visualization is a bit like developing a survey. There’s more to it than just making a list of questions. You’ve got to start with purpose and audience. Otherwise, you might very well end up with something that doesn’t actually meet the need.

For a data visualization to be effective at communicating your key message, you need good data —data that answers your evaluation questions. So the data visualization creation process actually relies upon decisions made along the way of your evaluation journey…. 

One of the areas TCEC receives the most questions about is data visualization: 

"Is a bar chart or a pie chart better?" 

"How many graphs am I required to include in a report?" 

"We collected a lot of data, how do I know which I should make into a chart?"

Even before I was born, my family has been huge followers of Bay Area sports.  Our Golden State Warriors are currently up 1-0 in the Western Conference Finals.  (Go Warriors!)  As a fan, it’s a lot of fun (and nerve-wracking) to watch our favorite teams do what they do.  As an evaluator, my brain can’t help but also see the fun in the numbers of the game, the different stats and data visualizations flashed on the screen or written in articles.   

My daughter, as with the rest of the students in California, started school virtually a few weeks ago.  Do you remember your time in elementary school?  Learning the basics.  Enjoying story time and circle time.  Absorbing everything you see and hear.  Getting lots of time to play and explore.  Well we got a little piece of that experience when we took Katherine Haugh’s Visual Note-Taking 101: Encouraging Dynamic Participation through Visual Storytelling e