in focus

LEARNING TECHNOLOGIES

In Focus is a new
section of custom-
ized content that
you’ll find quarterly
in TD. ATD members
can select their topic
of choice—learning
technologies,
instructional design,
measurement and
evaluation, or train-
Data Visualization
ing delivery—at
www.td.org/
mypreferences.
Can Save Your
ALSO IN THIS SECTION
69 Bring E-Learning
Life—and the
to Life
By Dani Watkins
Whiteboard animations
Company Money
enable you to trans-
form learning and tell a
digital story that stands
How important are infographics and data
alone or augments visualization? Let your heart decide.
e-learning courses.

IMAGE | ACTIVESTUDIO/GETTY IMAGES May 2018 | TD 65 LT

IN FOCUS: LEARNING TECHNOLOGIES
BY BRANDON WEELDREYER
I
magine you’re on the operating table. Your heart surgeon is searching for
spots where plaque has built up in your arteries. If she finds them, she could
save your life by preventing a very possible, future heart attack.
Unfortunately, the high-risk deposits that could
eventually rupture aren’t detectable with con-
ventional imaging. And that’s a big deal, because
around 180,000 people die each year because of
this form of heart disease.
So, what does your life rely on? Data visualization.
But not only that—good data visualization.
The ways in which that data can be visualized
range in effectiveness. Your doctor might be using
a 3-D map with colors across the full spectrum to
chart the flow of blood through your heart. 3-D?
Full-spectrum? Sounds fairly state of the art, right?
Well, if you consider that your cardiologist would
need to rotate that map to see all your arteries, that
can be a bit complicated, given her hands are in
your chest cavity. And so, it’s fortunate that data-
visualization experts such as Northeastern University’s
Michelle Borkin are out there to help save lives.
Through her study, “Evaluation of Artery Visual-
izations for Heart Disease Diagnosis,” Borkin found
that a 2-D representation of what’s called a diverging
color map is 91 percent effective in guiding doctors to
identify low endothelial shear stress, or the frictional
force of blood on the artery wall. And while 91 percent
may not be the most reassuring number with your life
on the line, you’d be thanking your stars for Borkin,
because the more traditional, 3-D full-spectrum, state-
of-the-art-sounding map is only 39 percent effective.
Which would you prefer?
From the operating
room to the boardroom
Clearly, data visualization isn’t just a buzzword,
and it’s not only useful in healthcare. It can quickly
communicate complicated information in any
number of contexts. But how do infographics
relate to data visualization?
Think of infographics as homes. A piece of data vi-
sualization is most comfortable within the four walls
of an infographic that also contains supporting data,
illustrations to attract eyes, and a narrative to tie it
all together. Data visualization can exist alone, and
infographics can live without data visualization, but
together they make quite a pair.
Projects can take the form of digital-only static in-
fographics and printed one-page PDFs to animated
66 LT TD | IN FOCUS
videos and interactive websites. Companies can
use these for internal education (Would you rather
thumb through a 100-page binder to find out the
particulars of parental leave or simply take a look
at an infographic?) to compare differences, recount
history, recap an event, decide between a variety of
options, or pretty much anything else imaginable.
Add animation or interactivity to these different cat-
egories, and you have infinite storytelling potential
and a wide selection of media upon which to share
the data visualization.
The process
Over the course of more than 2,500 visual marketing
projects, Lemonly—a global infographics company—has
learned a thing or two about visualizing data. The com-
pany’s “lemons-to-lemonade” recipe for taking data
to the next level always follows the same steps, which
you can adapt to your data-visualization projects.
The initial stage involves answering a few ques-
tions about the project and its goal. Ask: Where will
this piece live? What is its goal? Is the audience in-
ternal or external? How much do you already know
about the subject matter? What are the three main
takeaways you want someone to have after viewing
the piece? Do you want to educate the audience or
just talk about product benefits? What colors or style
are you envisioning for the project?
The next step is simple: research. After all, you
can’t have data visualization without data. Whether
it’s key stats or spreadsheets of data or information
from government databases, an internal annual re-
port, or through an old-fashioned Google search,
depending on the subject matter (sticking to credible
sources, of course), gather all the sources in one place
and start analyzing them for trends.
After gathering and analyzing the information,
the next step is to mull it over and whip up a clean,
concise copy document. The process is more com-
plex than copy and paste, though. Make sure the
infographic contains the necessary information to
guide and educate the viewer without adding too
much fluff, keeping the story significant, struc-
tured, and simple. Knowing what not to include is
vital—too much information can be overwhelming,
and perhaps some supporting facts would work well
 IN FOCUS: LEARNING TECHNOLOGIES
SOURCE: LEMONLY

as a quick-hitting piece of microcontent, like a loop-

ing video on Instagram, for example.
When writing copy for the piece, it’s wise to start
with an outline, which will keep the content well-
organized and divided into clear sections. Always
keep the audience and the project’s main goal in
mind. Doing so serves as a guidepost when you’re
deciding what to keep, what to cut, and the type of
voice to evoke for the project.
After the copy and data are ready, the magic re-
ally begins. It’s time to lay out a wireframe and a
mood board. The wireframe is a blueprint of sorts
of the infographic’s general layout and hierarchy.
This is a necessary step to see where everything
will go and determine which visual representations
will serve the data best—that is to say a bar chart to
show comparison versus a pie chart to show parts of
a whole. The mood board should consist of several
illustrations, colors, and other pieces of visual inspi-
ration. This is important to nail down before going
to town in the design phase. For example, does the
color palette evoke the emotion of the writing or
data in the piece? Does the illustration style align
with your company’s brand guidelines, or should it
be a more editorial piece?
It’s not until the layout looks good and the copy is
final that the designers should develop the first design
draft. It may seem strange for the designers to touch Companies can use data visualizations for internal education (top) or
the project only in the final steps, but a lot of prep external communication (bottom).
SOURCE: LEMONLY
work needs to go into a project before determining
how it looks. This is the chance to play around
with the scale of illustrations and data points

May 2018 | TD 67 LT
IN FOCUS: LEARNING TECHNOLOGIES
showcased in the wireframe, add in fonts to help sell
the story appropriately, and go wild on illustration
and true data visualization.
Here are just a few ways companies can save money
by using data visualization and infographics to com-
municate with and engage their internal audience,
whether across the hall or across the hemisphere.
Shed light on employee benefits
Despite what some may think, HR can be fun, and
benefits can be a bulwark at your company, as long as
they’re easy to understand. For this reason, BP aimed
to create a microsite that teaches employees how to
best follow and maximize their financial investments.
From an interactive quiz that gauges a person’s
investment personality to an FAQ section, this in-
teractive helped a big company display complex
information in a way that doesn’t overwhelm but
rather offers numerous ways to dig deeper, based on
a person’s individual needs.
Data
visualization
can quickly
communicate
complicated
information in
any number
of contexts.
68 LT TD | IN FOCUS
How it saves money: A company’s investment in
benefits can pay off.
Recap the year with an annual report
South Dakota’s six public universities generate more
than brainpower—they create jobs, bring students and
workers to the state, and boast a big return on invest-
ment to the state economy. That’s why the University
of South Dakota’s Beacom School of Business sought
to position higher education as an important indus-
try. Using hard numbers, a clean design, and dynamic
comparisons, the resulting e-book became an easy-
to-digest resource for lawmakers, the media, and the
public. With this piece in the universities’ arsenal,
others may have a hard time arguing against invest-
ing in these institutions.
How it saves money: Companies can learn from
mistakes and capitalize on successes.
Guide the team to adopt best practices
Sales calls aren’t always as easy as ABC—or “Always
be closing.” Gong got into the science of winning
sales conversations, analyzing more than a quarter
of a million sales calls using artificial intelligence.
What better way to communicate the insights from
these calls than with a data visualization-heavy info-
graphic? Comparing top performing sales pitches to
the average sales pitch in a visual way gave Gong an
advantage over its competitors.
How it saves money: Companies can benefit from
overall efficiencies.
Choose your own adventure
Of course, these examples may not fit your compa-
ny’s needs perfectly but offer a few looks at what
is possible.
Not every example of presenting data visually
comes down to life and death. Sometimes it’s more
about learning a new skill or communicating your
company’s safety procedures. The capabilities of
combining art and data—either more numbers-based
or more narrative-based data—are endless.
Hopefully your next experience with data visual-
ization is not as dire as the medical situation, but if
you pay attention, you’ll start to find examples of
data visualization all around you.
Brandon Weeldreyer is a writer and marketing
professional and a content manager at Lemonly;
brandon.weeldreyer@gmail.com.
Copyright of TD: Talent Development is the property of Association for Talent Development
and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without
the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or
email articles for individual use.