My data visualization fundamentals course, Practical Charts, lasts two full days in person or four half-days online. At the end of each workshop, I usually say something like, “Congratulations! You’re not a data viz guru but you now have the roughly 50% of the knowledge that will enable you to competently address roughly 90% of the data viz challenges that you’re likely to encounter day-to-day.”
Why only 50% of the knowledge? Because that’s about how many guidelines, principles, research findings, chart types, etc. I have time to cover in a few days. Why does 50% of the knowledge equip you to address 90% of the challenges? Because the guidelines and concepts that I do cover are those that are required to address the most common data visualization challenges that arise in real-world organizations, and avoid the most common chart design mistakes that people make. A classic Pareto principle situation.
Sometimes, though, I get asked (usually by the people who control the training budget purse strings) if I can deliver a one- or two-hour “basic” best practices session instead of a multi-day workshop. “We don’t need to become experts,” they say, “we just need the basics.”
Yes, it would be fantastic if it were possible to learn enough about data visualization in an hour or two to competently address even half of the challenges that one is likely to encounter day-to-day and, over the years, many people have tried to create crash courses, checklists, videos and flowchart posters that attempt to do just that. None of those have reduced the need or demand for multi-day workshops, though.
Why not? Well, if several intensive days equips you to address 90% of the challenges that you’re likely to encounter day-to-day, two hours will equip you to handle something like 15%, assuming that you fully understood and retained everything that I taught you in those two hours (which will be tough since there won’t be time for any practice exercises or group discussions).
Would you want to pay for training that equips you to handle just 15% of the situations that you’re likely to encounter day-to-day? I wouldn’t want to charge you for that, either.
There’s an even bigger problem with data visualization “crash courses”, though. Knowing “a little bit of data visualization” doesn’t make you a non-expert, it makes you dangerous. I’ve seen far too many people take a short course or watch a few videos and then, feeling buoyed by their newfound knowledge, create charts that are confusing at best and fundamentally misleading at worst.
Data visualization is one of those skills where a little bit of knowledge–and the false confidence that often comes along with it–can do more damage than no knowledge at all. Like learning “a little bit of driving” and then having the confidence to take the family sedan out for a spin. There’s a minimum level of knowledge that’s required in order to create charts that accurately reflect the underlying reality that the chart is intended to represent, that are useful, and that are easy for audiences to understand. Having less than that minimum level of knowledge doesn’t make you a novice, it makes you someone who creates charts that lead to bad decisions.
Yes, a multi-day workshop won’t equip you to handle every chart design challenge that you might encounter, but it will, at least, make you a “safe” chart designer who’s unlikely to seriously confuse or mislead audiences. It also forms a solid base on which to build so that, over time and with practice, you’ll learn to create ever more effective charts for an ever wider variety of situations.
Yes, it would be great if I could teach you enough in an hour or two to be able to create charts “safely”. Unfortunately, though, I don’t think anyone can do that.