Module 25

Using Visuals

Module Overview

J Module 25 focuses on using visuals common in business documents, including charts, graphs, and clip art.

Numerous software packages offer pre-made clip art so users don’t have to be artists at all, and most word processing programs have tools to create simple charts, tables, and graphs. However, a general appreciation of good design is important, regardless of artistic skill. And with so much emphasis on visuals in communication today, many people expect sophistication when using visuals.

Visuals are used in the rough draft to:

· See that ideas are presented completely.

· Find relationships.

And in the final draft to:

· Make points vivid.

· Emphasize material.

· Present material more compactly and with less repetition.

þ What are stories, and how do I find them?

A story is something that is happening, according to the data.

To find stories, look for relationships and changes.

Ever visual should tell a story, that is, show the reader that something is happening, according to the data. Stories are often expressed as the title of the visual—Salaries Grew by 27 Percent from 1990 to 2000. Good stories use strong verbs to clearly show action. Titles without verbs—Salaries from 1990 to 2000—tell the reader little or nothing about what has happened.

To find stories, writers should analyze their data carefully. Specifically writers should

1. Focus on a topic.

2. Simplify the data.

3. Look for relationships and changes.

Sometimes, a graphic alone does not tell the complete story. In such cases, writers can use paired graphs—side-by-side comparisons that together tell the complete story. Because data can tell more than one story, writers must choose carefully which story they wish to tell. Data alone will not tell a story, and left to interpretation, data can confuse and frustrate audiences.

þ Does it matter what kind of visual I use?

Yes! The visual must match the kind of story.

Visuals are not interchangeable, even if some students use them interchangeably!

· Use tables when the reader needs to be able to identify exact values.

· Use a chart or graph when you want the reader to focus on relationships.

· Use a pie chart to compare a part to the whole.

· Use a bar chart or line graph to compare one item to another item or items over time.

þWhat design conventions should I follow?

Check your visuals against the lists that follow.

Every visual should contain the following six components:

1. A title that tells the story that the visual shows.

2. A clear indication of what the data are.

3. Clearly labeled units.

4. Labels or legends for axes, colors, symbols, and so forth.

5. The source of the data.

6. The source of the visual, if it’s reproduced.

Tables are numbers or words arranged in rows and columns; figures are everything else.

For effective tables, writers should

· Use tables only when they want the audience to focus on specific numbers. Graphs convey less specific information but are always more memorable.

· Use common, understandable units. Round off to simplify the data (e.g., 35% rather than 35.27%; 34,000 rather than 33,942).

· Provide column and row totals or averages when they're relevant.

· Put the items they want readers to compare in columns rather than in rows to facilitate mental subtraction and division.

· When they have many rows, screen alternate entries or double space after every five entries to help readers line up items accurately.

To use pie charts effectively, writers should

· Start at 12 o'clock with the largest percentage or the percentage they want to focus on. Go clockwise to each smaller percentage or to each percentage in some other logical order.

· Make the chart a perfect circle. Perspective circles distort the data.

· Limit the number of segments to five or seven. If their data have more divisions, combine the smallest or the least important into a single "miscellaneous" or "other" category.

· Label the segments outside the circle. Internal labels are hard to read.

To use bar charts effectively, writers should

· Order the bars in a logical or chronological order.

· Put the bars close enough together to make comparison easy.

· Label both horizontal and vertical axes.

· Put all labels inside the bars or outside them. When some labels are inside and some are outside, the labels carry the visual weight of longer bars, distorting the data.

· Make all the bars the same width.

· Use different colors for different bars only when their meanings are different: estimates as opposed to known numbers, negative as opposed to positive numbers.

· Avoid using perspective. Perspective makes the values harder to read and can make comparison difficult.

To use line graphs effectively, writers should

· Label both horizontal and vertical axes.

· When time is a variable, put it on the horizontal axis.

· Avoid using more than three different lines on one graph. Even three lines may be too many if they cross each other.

· Avoid using perspective. Perspective makes the values harder to read and can make comparison difficult.

As suggested here, writers should use the specific visual that best expresses the data they have. They should avoid mixing and matching types, instead using the particular visual that fits their needs.

þ Can I use color and clip art?

Use color carefully.

Avoid decorative clip art in memos and reports.

Help students to resist the temptation to use color entirely for decorative purposes by reminding them of cultural interpretations of color. In fact, though computer programs offer almost limitless palettes of colors, writers must carefully choose the colors they use, as well as the number.

To use color effectively, writers should

· Use no more than five colors when colors have meanings.

· Use glossy paper to make colors more vivid.

· Be aware that colors on a computer screen always look brighter than colors on paper.

Likewise, writers must take care when selecting and using clip art. Like color, clip art used for decorative purposes only may hurt a document or presentation rather than help it. For instance, clip art that is biased—that shows only European-American males, for instance, to represent a company that may be more than 50 percent female—can offend readers or viewers.

Clip art that is only decorative is called chartjunk. Writers should avoid using chartjunk in business documents, as it can confuse or mislead readers trying to interpret the data. Internal presentations that are informal may use chartjunk; however, most business documents are better without chartjunk.

þ What else do I need to check for?

Be sure that the visual is accurate and ethical.

Students should double check visuals for accuracy and make sure they’re ethical. Even simple bar and line graphs can be misleading if part of the scale is missing, or truncated. Truncated graphs are most acceptable when the audience knows the basic data set well. Data can also be distorted when the context is omitted.

Writers can take steps to make visuals more accurate:

· Differentiate between actual and estimated or projected values.

· When you must truncate a scale, do so clearly with a break in the bars of in the background.

· Avoid perspective and three-dimensional graphs.

· Avoid combining graphs with different scales.

· Use images of people carefully in histographs to avoid sexist, racist, or other exclusionary visual statements.

þ Can I use the same visuals in my document and my presentation?

Only if the table or graph is simple.

Visuals in presentations should be simple. Remind students that they can use the visuals from the document if they are simple. To simplify a complex table, writers can cut out some of the information round off the data even more, or present the material in a chart rather than a table.