Mmmm. Fruit salad. It all looks good. But where do I focus? (c) iStockPhoto / Adventure Photo
By default PowerPoint or Excel 2007 will create multicolored pie charts or single-colored bar charts. Unfortunately, these default color combinations can cause charts to communicate less effectively unless they are modified.
In most cases, when you’re using charts in PowerPoint slides you’re trying to highlight a specific data point or a subset of data points:
- “Look at how much higher the revenue is for this product”
- “See how the average for this country is much lower than those of other countries”
- “Notice how the quality score of this product is practically the same as those of other cheaper products” Continue reading “How Colors Can Make Your PowerPoint Charts More Digestible”
, written by Dan Roam, is a bold effort at introducing business people to using visual thinking principles to solve problems and communicate more effectively. Visual thinking is something that I feel I excel at; however, I know it has been a challenge for many of my co-workers, managers, and clients. Even if you don’t struggle with visual thinking, I recommend The Back of the Napkin (four of five stars) as it provides a valuable set of processes and frameworks that can even benefit experienced visual thinkers, who probably operate more by intuition than methodology. 
