1. Using Visuals Module Twenty Five Copyright © 2014 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. McGraw-Hill/Irwin

2. Learning Objectives LO 25-1 Identify stories for business visuals. LO 25-2 Select visuals for stories. LO 25-3 Apply principles for good design. LO 25-4 Apply principles for effective color and clip art use. 25-2

3. Learning Objectives LO 25-5 Apply principles for accurate and ethical visuals. LO 25-6 Synthesize visuals with text. LO 25-7 Prepare print visuals for use in presentations. 25-3

4. Using Visuals In the rough draft use visuals to:  See that ideas are presented completely.  Find relationships. 25-4

5. Using Visuals In the final draft use visuals to:  Make points vivid.  Emphasize material.  Present material more compactly and with less repetition.  Focus on information that decision makers need. 25-5

6. What are stories, and how do I find them? Good stories may:  Support a hunch you have.  Surprise you or challenge so-called “common knowledge.”  Show trends or changes you didn’t know existed. 25-6

7. What are stories, and how do I find them? To find stories: 1.Focus on a topic 2.Simplify the data 3.Look for relationships and changes 25-7

8. Paired Graphs Tell a Complex Story 25-8

9. Choose the Visual to Fit the Story 25-9

10. What design conventions should I follow? 25-10 A title that tells the visual’s story. A clear indication of what the data are. Clearly labeled units. Labels or legends. The data’s source, if it’s reproduced. The visual’s source, if it’s reproduced.

11. Tables  Round off to simplify the data  Provide column and row totals or averages when they’re relevant.  Put the items you want readers to compare in columns rather than in rows  Screen alternate entries or double-space after every five entries to help readers line up items accurately 25-11

12. Pie Charts  Starting at 12 o’clock, go clockwise to each smaller percentage or to each percentage in some other logical order.  Make the chart a perfect circle.  Limit the number of segments to five or seven  Label the segments outside the circle 25-12

13. Bar Charts  Order the bars in a logical or chronological order.  Put the bars close enough together to make comparison easy.  Label horizontal and vertical axes.  Put all labels inside the bars or outside them.  Make all the bars the same width.  Use different colors for different bars only when their meanings are different 25-13

14. Varieties of Bar Charts 25-14

15. Line Graphs  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.  Avoid using perspective. 25-15

16. Can I use color and clip art?  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 the same colors on paper 25-16

17. Can I use color and clip art?  Clip art  predrawn images that you can import into your newsletter, sign, or graph.  Chartjunk  decorations that at best are irrelevant to the visual and at worst mislead the reader 25-17

18. What else do I need to check for? To make your 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 or in the background.  Avoid perspective and three-dimensional graphs.  Avoid combining graphs with different scales. 25-18

19. Chartjunk and Dimensions Distort Data 25-19

20. Truncated Scales Distort Data 25-20

21. Integrating Visuals into Your Text  Refer to every visual in your text.  Summarize the main point of a visual before you present the visual itself.  Spell out numbers that fall at the beginning of a sentence. 25-21

22. Can I use the same visuals in my document and my presentation?  For presentations, simplify paper visuals.  To simplify a complex table divide it into several visuals  Visuals for presentations should have titles but don’t need figure numbers. 25-22