Selecting information to display

A large volume of data is often collected during any project, so any report must be very selective about the information that is displayed.

The report should summarise the most important features of the data.

This is similar to the distinction that engineers make between the signal that is being communicated between two locations and the noise that is added by the communications channel. The noise degrades the signal and, in the worst cases, can make the signal difficult to detect.

Signal   =   information you want
Noise   =   'random' modification to the signal

An important goal of data presentation is to extract the 'signal' from a data set and clearly display it without the 'noise' of the less important detail in the data.

Prune out unnecessary detail

Many reports are filled with bar charts, pie charts, histograms, scatterplots and a variety of other plots, just because the researcher produced them when exploring the data! Graphics, tables and text should only be included if they add new and interesting information about the data.

Before producing a report or other publication, it is important to first identify the most important information that you want to convey.