Communicating Data

Communicating data of number has become a challenge for every presenter. Data in form of number, chart, or percentages will be easily understood if it is presented visually with attracting design. Chart is a good choice to present data concisely and clearly. Chart can be meant as a combination of data in the form of number, letter, symbol, word, or depiction that is presented in a media with a purpose to explain data.

Observing the importance of chart as a tool to ease up presenting information, Stube HEMAT organized training about chart making on April 22, 2017 in Stube HEMAT Yogyakarta secretariat, attended by 15 participants from different majors and campuses in Yogyakarta. The trainers of the training were Sarloce Apang, S.T. and Indah Theresia, S.E. Both of them are Stube HEMAT Yogyakarta’s work team members.

This training began with an introduction to many kind of graphs and its purpose. Actually, Microsoft PowerPoint has provided more than 11 kinds of chart, such as column chart, pie chart, bar chart, line chart, scatter chart, stock chart, surface chart, radar chart, sunburst chart, bubble chart, doughnut chart, etc. However, in the reality, there are only 5 charts mainly used, so this training was focusing at making pie chart, line chart, column chart, and bar chart.

Afterward, participant was given time to make chart gradually with their own laptop based on example problem given by the trainer and to do it according to the trainer guidance.  The first chart made was the pie chart, followed by column chart, bar chart, and then line chart. The trainer explained it step by step, from using MS Excel to input data before further process into a chart.

Chart that has been made can be edited to be more attractive with available applications in MS PowerPoint, such as, chart’s color and its background which is interchangeable.

Training was finalized by giving the participants tasks to be done by their own. While doing the tasks they needed to analyze which chart that was suitable to the data that they had. With this short training, students were expected to have a better skill to communicate data. (ITM).