Data design for comprehension

A recent client in the Oregon Department of Transportation was looking to automate the production of about 50 reports to various local schools. The reports carried important information about the likelihood of students to walk or bike to school based on distance and other factors.

We revised the reports to graphically communicate the information. There was production time savings to be found in exporting the 50 reports from Excel to Word so a more polished report could be produced automagically. Here’s the before and after.

an excel spreadsheet page
The story is locked in the numbers
This is a Word file importing Excel information
AFTER redesign: A Word file importing Excel data