How to create attractive materials using graphs

Many of you may have experienced the difficulty of creating graphs for your documents, starting with putting them together in a table while using PowerPoint, Excel, or other software. In this issue, we will introduce an easy way to create a variety of graphs.

Let's choose the best graph.

When it comes to creating graphs, the most appropriate graph will depend on how you want to present the data. By skillfully using different types of graphs according to what you want to express, such as comparing large and small quantities, comparing overall ratios, or focusing on changes in numerical values, you can create a document that is easy to understand at a glance. A useful tool for creating a variety of graphs is the free graphing tool provided by online whiteboard tools such as Miro. From basic graphs such as bar and pie charts, there are also diagrams such as Euler diagrams, Venn diagrams, and pyramid diagrams that can be useful when summarizing views. You can easily create easy-to-read graphs by simply selecting one of these templates and inserting numerical values or text.

Use appropriate colours and labelling for graphs!

Once the shape of the graph is completed, you should use an appropriate colour scheme and label the items. For example, if you are analyzing data by-product in a document, unifying the colours for each product, such as red for Product A and blue for Product B, will make it intuitively clear that the red colour refers to information on Product A throughout the entire document, even when looking at different graphs. Paying attention to details such as these and finishing the document will lead to an easy-to-understand and attractive document.

Let's verbalize our considerations based on the evidence of the graphs.

The greatest advantage of graphs is that they convey numerical information in an easy-to-understand visual manner. They help us to recognize differences between large and small, numerical values, and ratios as images. Therefore, it is easy to fall into the trap of talking about what you can see when you look at a graph in a presentation or on a document. For example, information such as "Product A sells more than Product B" would probably be obvious if it were represented by a bar graph. What is important as data is the "consideration" part, such as the background that can be read from this result and the forecast that can be assumed next. This discussion is not something that can be understood only from the graph but is an answer that can be derived from a combination of various numerical data, surveys, social conditions, and so on. It is this consideration that should be conveyed in the data, and it is this consideration that has value.

What are the advantages of documents with graphs?

Having told you earlier that it is the graph-based discussion that is of value, you may be thinking that you no longer need the graph. However, the inclusion of graphs has various effects. Basically, proposals and other documents are expected to be seen by various people within the client's company after the proposal is submitted. In particular, the proposal may have to go to upper management for approval. In such cases, if the proposal contains only considerations without numerical data, the client will not be able to see how the considerations were derived, and the credibility of the proposal will be diminished. There is also the risk that the entire project will be rejected because of a slight discrepancy in the discussion. On the other hand, if the data is based on numerical data and graphed, the rationale is clear, and even if the direction of consideration does not match, the numerical values are convincing, and the client's level of empathy can be explored. In this way, materials with graphs, and the fact that these graphs are easy to understand, greatly increase the efficacy of the materials.

Why not spend less time making graphs and use the templates to your advantage to create attractive documents?

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