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for the design doctor? Got a squabble you need to settle? Send
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I have good news
and bad news:
The good news:
Yes, you can buy software (like Excel, or programs with names
like Pie Chart Maker) that will help you bang out pie charts,
fever charts and bar charts.
The bad news: Of
all the sidebar options you could generate, readers' LEAST
favorite graphics are pie charts, fever charts and bar charts.
Don’t get me
wrong. Condensing data into accessible sidebars is a terrific
idea. And there are numerous ways to do it, from checklists to
timelines to Q&As to quote collections. (Shameless self-promotion alert: These sidebar ideas
are illustrated in exciting detail in Chapter 6 of “The
Newspaper Designer’s Handbook.”)
But sadly, pie
charts, fever charts and bar charts easily become too
mathematically abstract or too bureaucratic for most readers;
they’re too often filled with obscure data that's too
dull to track. So I often warn editors to AVOID those kinds of
graphics. Instead of tracking how budget numbers bounce around
from year to year, show me what's different this year, and why,
and how it affects me, and why I should care.
And for that,
bullet-items and fast-fact boxes and Q&As are much smarter.
You don’t need artists or specialized software to break
down complex material into understandable nuggets; you just
need a library of alternative options to choose from. So start
collecting samples, if you haven’t already, from books,
magazines and newspapers you admire, and use those as models
for future stories.
