Presenting Data: How to Communicate Your Message Effectively

Preface

This book is based on 40 years' worth of experience presenting data – and their messages – to policy colleagues and other users of government statistics. The experience formed the basis of a training course I have run across many organisations, inside and outside government, over the last 30 years. More recently, this course has been run many times in the Royal Statistical Society's training programme. The messages for presenters of data which are included here are appropriate for all types of presentation including data visualisations and infographics. If the fundamental principles are not observed, the audience for the presentation will have to work much harder than necessary to derive the message.

The book is intended to be read by all who present data in any form and the chapters are structured so that they are independent of each other. Poor presentation is everywhere. Basic principles are forgotten or ignored. The result is that audiences are presented with confusing and poor tables and charts and are asked to do calculations in their heads to understand the information.

Throughout, I have looked at the presented data in whatever form through the eyes of a user – essentially the audience for what is presented. By getting producers to perceive the data as a user means that a producer of data will not present users with what they have but what they need in a form that any message can easily be acquired.

The book is for information providers. Throughout, the word ...