Present a daily occurrence – How to guide
How to present a daily occurrence: Make it visual. Because everyone gets visuals.
In this article learn about which visuals to use:
Most reports are written and then usually, nothing. Because they’re put away and forgotten. As a result, the our day-to-day activity goes under valued and risks undetected.
The best way to make use of reports is to make them visual. Because visuals engage.
1. How to get data to visualise a daily occurrence
To manually present daily occurrence is time consuming and expensive (even with ChatGPT). Therefore, we recommend a digital daily occurrence book/log. Because it captures and categorises reports ready to present.
Which visual to choose? There are lots of visual options. Below we look at their advantages and disadvantages. Often these visuals appear on a dashboard – find out how to build a security dashboard.
Below is the SIRV online daily occurrence book:
2. Pie chart
Pie charts show a share of a whole. For example, if there are 100 entries in your occurrence book, five of which are fire alarms, then 5% of the pie chart will show fire alarms. However, if there too many segments then the human eye struggles to read the pie chart. For instance, in the pie chart below we’ve added eight more entries:
As a result, it’s no longer possible to tell all the entry types, let alone the value of each segment. Therefore, a pie chart is not how to present a daily occurrence.
3. Bubble Graph
Bubble graphs fill a space with bubbles (circles) and the size of each bubble reflects its share of a whole. Because a bubble graph is often displayed online, it encourages interaction. In other words, the user can click on one bubble and all the bubbles move. This is great fun. However, in a static format (as below), the bubble graph suffers from the same problem as pie charts. Because they poorly display lots of low values. In addition, accurate comparisons are difficult.
4. Bar chart
The bar chart shows the same information as the previous busy pie chart but in a far better way. Because, with a bar chart the viewer can clearly see each entry type and get a good idea of its value. Therefore, bar charts are a great way to present a daily occurrence book.
This bar chart has twice the amount of information as the previous bar chart (two months of entries) but remains easy to read.
Another kind of bar chart is shown below, the ‘stacked’ bar chart.
The stacked bar chart shows many values against one attribute (in this case, crime types against London borough).
5. Map
Maps have a common appeal, lots of people love maps!
This map shows events in London. However, it could be used to display the location of entries across an estate. But, because the map focusses the viewer on the location of entries we would only recommend its use along with a bar chart.
Conclusion: How to present a daily occurrence
Because humans are naturally visual creatures, we engage far better with visuals that tables and lines of text. Therefore, there’s huge value in presenting a daily occurrence with visualisations. If you’d like to know just how easily we can bring your reports to life get in touch.
