{"id":4537,"date":"2025-08-22T12:56:59","date_gmt":"2025-08-22T12:56:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/castco.wpenginepowered.com\/?post_type=ht_kb&p=4537"},"modified":"2025-09-23T10:50:04","modified_gmt":"2025-09-23T10:50:04","slug":"guidance-data-visualisation","status":"publish","type":"ht_kb","link":"https:\/\/castco.org\/knowledge-base\/guidance-data-visualisation\/","title":{"rendered":"Guidance: Data visualisation"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Purpose:<\/strong> Help partners turn monitoring results into clear visuals that support understanding, decisions, and action.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Who this is for:<\/strong> Catchment partnerships, volunteers, and delivery teams creating maps, charts, dashboards, and report cards.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When to use:<\/strong> After you have agreed your monitoring purpose and data management approach.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Principles and best practices<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
    \n
  1. Start with the decision.<\/strong> Who needs to decide what, by when? Design the visual to answer that decision in one glance; deeper detail can sit behind tabs or tooltips.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  2. Show thresholds and context.<\/strong> People need to see if a value is good, borderline, or poor. Use regulatory or locally agreed thresholds and make them visible (bands\/lines\/legends), not just implied.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  3. Be honest about uncertainty.<\/strong> Add n-values, ranges, confidence bands, or icons for below-detection-limit. Explain caveats briefly near the graphic.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  4. Favour comparisons over raw numbers.<\/strong> Trends, percent change, percentile ranks, and categories (e.g., traffic\u2011light) are easier to interpret than decimals.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  5. Don\u2019t over\u2011promise precision.<\/strong> Round sensibly; avoid implying precision greater than your method supports.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  6. Keep it mobile\u2011first.<\/strong> Most viewers are on phones. Use short titles, large labels, clear legends, and single\u2011column layouts.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  7. Design for equity and access.<\/strong> Use colour\u2011blind\u2011safe palettes, textures\/markers as secondary encodings, high contrast, and plain language. Provide alt text (for screen readers).<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  8. Avoid acronyms and technical jargon.<\/strong> If you must use acronyms, spell them out or put in-context info buttons.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  9. Document the method.<\/strong> Link to a short \u201cHow this was calculated\u201d note: data source, date range, thresholds, and any weighting.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  10. Minimise cognitive load.<\/strong> Each visual should communicate ONE idea. If you need more, split into small multiples.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  11. Make updates obvious.<\/strong> Timestamp with \u201cLast updated\u201d and show the latest data point distinctly (e.g., an outlined marker).<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  12. Create space.<\/strong> Let your visualisations have adequate white space around them to allow viewers to visually group elements.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n
    \n\n\n\n
    \"\"<\/span>
    \n
    \n

    About Report Cards<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

    CaSTCo partners have been working collaboratively to develop and use Report Cards as a design pattern and communication tool. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \n
    Report Card guidance and examples<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

    Choosing the right visual patterns<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

    Use these patterns to match common CaSTCo questions:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    1. Is this site improving or getting worse?<\/h4>\n\n\n\n