Illustrating Information

I’ve been experimenting with different ways of displaying survey results. I’m a bit bored of bar charts and graphs. The picture above depicts what people felt employee communication is useful for and clockwise from the left we see: feedback, progress and milestones, executive decisions, and connecting people better.

In this next example we see how people responded to the use of different communication channels. Smileys are good, the top three are wearing sunglasses. Sad faces are not so good, rain clouds indicate the lowest scores.

What do you think about these current methods of employee communication
What do you think about these current methods of employee communication

And this third example is a work in progress based on what new channels of communication interest people. Above the main picture I’m working on here you can see my draft sketch.

New communication channels a work in progress
New communication channels a work in progress

So what do you think? Does this method work for you? Have you seen other examples you can share?

Author: Doug Shaw

Artist and Consultant. Embracing uncertainty, sketching myself into existence. Helping people do things differently, through an artistic lens.

6 thoughts on “Illustrating Information”

  1. I like, I am a visual person (despite not having any artistic ability) so pictures all ways work better, especially if they’re dynamic rather then static charts and spreadsheets.

    A nice ‘creative’ way to get across core info. I shall be making a suggestion in the office……..

    1. Thanks Oli. I bet you can draw, I only dared to try this after seeing the fantastic art at the #connectinghr unconference last week. I kept saying to myself – keep it simple! I think I managed that. It would be great to hear how you get on with the suggestion in your office 🙂

      Cheers – Doug

  2. Interesting stuff Doug! Makes me think of a coaching friend who on occasion brings out a bag of small curios and treasures. An eclectic mix of all sorts of interesting shapes, sizes, colours, textures….. you get the picture.

    She offers this collection to her client to help them focus on which object most represents their issue/feeling/etc. This selection then helps an exploration of what “it” is and how “it” is making the client feel through the shape, size, colours, texture of what they chose. It brings out a huge richness and depth to the dialogue which other methods might have missed.

    Along these lines, looking at what you are portraying, I wonder if there is a way you can put the pen in the audiences hands and ask them to portray what the results tell them? Whatever they draw there will be depth behind it. May only suit small groups but might be something to explore…

    1. Thanks David. We used objects when running the bring your children to work activities, I’d not thought about trying them with adults before now, hmmm?

      And yes – putting the pen in their hand is a great idea I’ve a small group session later this week will experiment with it there.

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