Data visualization and information dashboard design training and consulting

Practical Reporting is the consultancy of Nick Desbarats, an independent educator, author, and consultant who has trained thousands of professionals in over a dozen countries and designed dashboards for senior decision-makers at over 50 large organizations.

Upcoming open-registration online workshop!

Jan. 17-20 and Jan 23-26, 2023 (eight half-days)

Join Nick as he delivers his groundbreaking Practical Charts and Practical Dashboards courses online. Space in this workshop is limited, so early registration is recommended. Learn more and register for one or both courses today!

Available training courses

Nick currently delivers the following courses as private and open-registration workshops online and, when travel resumes, on-site at client locations.

Practical Charts
Online: Four half-days
On-site: Two days

Nick Desbarats’ foundational course that equips participants with the principles and best practices to handle every data visualization challenge that they’re likely to face in their day-to-day work, and to create charts that are clear, compelling and —above all— useful.

Detailed course description

Practical Dashboards
Online: Four half-days
On-site: Two days

Nick Desbarats’ groundbreaking course that uncovers the real reasons why so many dashboards fail to deliver real value, and that enables dashboard creators to create dashboards that users actually like.

Detailed course description

Graphs for Analysis
On-site only: One day

Teaches participants powerful techniques for exploring, analyzing and making sense of data using simple graphs and visual techniques as opposed to non-visual statistical methods.

Detailed course description

Featured clients

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What workshop participants are saying

“I’ve held senior business intelligence roles for two decades and am familiar with many data visualization training programs. Nick’s course is currently the best data visualization training in the world. Despite having discussed and studied data visualization with many people over the years, it STILL left me with the feeling of having a reprogrammed brain. I want to go back and redesign every chart that I've ever created.” - Chris Weis, Product Manager - Data Visualization, Kaufman Hall

"This workshop was jam-packed with practical content that will have a major impact on my day-to-day work. The Cheat Sheet handouts alone are unbelievably useful." - Katarina Naddaf, Team Lead, Government of Canada

“It’s been an incredible few days and the time just flew by. I can’t remember the last time I was so excited about a training course! The Practical Charts course definitely lives up to its name and Nick is a fantastic instructor, able to teach extremely valuable, practical techniques and considerations to guide participants on how to communicate data to others in the most effective and useful way.” - Amie Das, Senior Manager, KPMG

More workshop participant testimonials

Recent talks & interviews

Data Visualization Society: Pop-up Conversation - Dec 2021 BI or DIE Podcast: Interview by Viktoria and Kai – Mar 2021 Interview by Louise Watson – Jan 2021 Nick joins host Steve Wexler and four other guests to discuss Data, Dashboards, and Storytelling in this 74-minute video. Nick talks with hosts Viktoria and Kai about the Taxonomy for Practical Dashboards in this 47-minute podcast episode. In this 12-minute interview, Louise Watson of Adura Strategy asks Nick the question “What is a dashboard, really?”

More talks & interviews

Recent blog posts

Featured
Are vertical line charts ever a good idea?

I recently asked dataviz Twitter if there were situations in which a vertical line chart was the truly best choice. I was skeptical at first, but they changed my mind, so I wrote up the thought process as a Nightingale article for those who may be considering using vertical line charts in their own work.

Read More → Are line charts liars?

When I show line charts in my Practical Charts workshops, participants sometimes express concern that line charts “hide values that occur in between the points on the line”. In this article, I argue that this is a misconception and that line charts of summary values (e.g., monthly totals) don’t hide meaningful information.

Read More → How many bins should my histogram have?

Choosing how many bins to include in a histogram can be a tricky design decision. There are many articles out there that recommend algorithms or rules of thumb for calculating the “optimal” number of bins, however, I don’t think that any calculation can do this reliably. In this post, I argue that the “optimal” number of bins depends mostly on the specific insight that needs to be communicated about the data, and not on the nature of the data (number of values, standard deviation of the values, etc.)

Read More → Let's Make a Map of the Data Visualization Field!

I love data visualization but, TBH, the field is a bit of a mess and can be overwhelming and unapproachable, especially for beginners. In an effort to bring a bit of order to the chaos, I've been working on a "map" that brings many dataviz-related terms, types of visuals, skills, software products and books together into a single graphic that attempts to show how they all relate to one another, and to make the field more approachable.

Read More →

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