Presenting statistical information to an audience is not always easy, especially if you are dealing with a non-statistical crowd. Using a combination of text, tables and graphics will help grasp your audience’s attention and help them understand and remember your main message.

Decide on a conclusion that you want your audience to draw from your presentation

Before you start working on your presentation slides you need to ask yourself: “What is my point?” Deciding on what it is you want your audience to remember from your presentation will help you keep a focus on the message you want to highlight.

A picture is worth a thousand words

Statistical communication with your audience is not easy.Through a mix of data and beautiful design elements you can help your audience grasp and process complex content. The same data can be presented in many different ways. Therefore think about your audience and message to decide which graphic to go for: table or chart?

A good rule of thumb is the following: Do you need to present your audience with details? Go for a table. Are you highlighting patterns or relationships? Create a chart.

Tools for creating visuals

If you can’t find the right way to visualise your data in PowerPoint, here are a few (free) tools available online:

  • Infogr.am lets you create charts in few simple steps, ranging from the traditional layouts like bar and pie charts, to newer layouts like word clouds and tree maps. It supports complex statistics.
  • Creately has 50+ types of diagrams with specialised features and thousands of templates to help you create your graphics faster and better. Another flowchart drawing tool is Cacoo.
  • Tagxedo turns words into a custom shaped word clouds, Wordle is another easy to use tool to create simple word clouds.
  • Map Stack makes designing maps with geographic data easy. Assemble a selection of different map layers like backgrounds, satellite imagery, terrain, roads or labels.