Present Data So the Audience Sees the Right Comparison

Choose the display from the comparison

Begin with one sentence: what should the audience compare, detect, or decide? Use a table when exact values or several measures matter. Use bars or dots to compare categories, a line to show ordered change over time, a histogram or box plot to show a distribution, a scatterplot to examine the relationship between two numeric variables, and a map only when geography is part of the question. A forest plot shows study or subgroup estimates with uncertainty. Select the summary that fits the data: mean with standard deviation for a roughly symmetric distribution, median with quartiles for a skewed distribution, and counts with denominators for categorical outcomes. One display should serve one main message. If the audience must hunt through decoration to find the denominator or comparator, the design has failed.