Ideas and lessons from experiences designing and using data placemats for participatory data analysis.

1. D A TA D I N N E R P A R T I E S
D e s i g n i n g a n d U s i n g
D a t a P l a c e m a t s
Amanda Makulec
JSI Center for Health Information, Monitoring & Evaluation
May 2, 2016

2. What
makes
a great
dinner
par ty?

3. Delicious food

4. Thoughtfully
prepared

5. Well organized

6. With great
conversation

8. D a t a p l a c e m a t s *
s h a r e i n f o r m a t i o n
i n t h o u g h t f u l l y p r e s e n t e d w a y s
t o s t r i k e u p c o n v e r s a t i o n s a n d
g e n e r a t e n e w i n s i g h t .
*Term originally coined by the
Learn more about their concept: “Data Placemats: A DataViz Technique to Improve Stakeholder Understanding of Evaluation
Results”Veena Pankaj / Presented at Evaluation 2012 http://www.slideshare.net/InnoNet_Eval/data-placemats-22200834

9. E l e c t r o n i c d a s h b o a r d s
c a n m e e t t h i s n e e d t o o .

10. B u t s o m e t i m e s a s i m p l e , p a p e r - b a s e d
t o o l i s b e s t f o r w o r k s h o p s a n d
o t h e r c o l l a b o r a t i v e s e t t i n g s .

11. TITLE
Short description of the content
Simple charts and graphs
(declutter, basic title, clean design)
Add some quotes or other qualitative
information if you want
Title and short description should clearly
show what information you’re sharing

12. TITLE
Short description of the content
Use space on the back to provide more
detailed data, if needed
Create explicit space
for notes and
reflections

13. Think of it as an analog
dashboard being used as a
facilitation tool.
(Many of the best practices for
dashboard design also apply here.)

14. W h o w i l l y o u r p a r t i c i p a n t s b e
a n d w h a t q u e s t i o n s d o t h e y
w a n t t o a n s w e r ?
W h a t d a t a c a n y o u s h a r e
t o h e l p a n s w e r
t h o s e q u e s t i o n s ?
W h a t k i n d s o f ( s i m p l e )
v i s u a l i z a t i o n s s h o u l d y o u
u s e t o f a c i l i t a t e a n a l y s i s ?

15. D E S I G N
Use accessible tools to make it
easy to edit & make changes
for when you need to do a
quick layout for a single use
for when you need to set
up a template that will be
changed and updated

16. Two use cases
for data placemats

17. Advocacy Worksh op
Analyizing Community Scorecard Data from CECHLA,
a local consortium working on HIV/AIDS issues
in Zimbabwe

19. Identifying information deliberately obscured

21. U s e s i m p l e q u e s t i o n s w h e n f a c i l i t a t i n g
What stories do
you see in your
district?
What are the
success stories
underpinning
where scores
improved?
What advocacy
issues do we need
to address where
scores are stagnant
or decreasing?

22. G l ob al Heal t h Mi n i U
SPRING Nutrition Capacity Building
Evaluation Data from Haiti

25. Considering using data
placemats for…
 Participatory analysis in a
workshop
 Engaging your audience in
an activity during a
presentation
 Helping to surface success
stories with stakeholders
But probably not for…
 A presentation handout or
leave behind on its own
 Engaging teams or
stakeholders with very
limited analytical capabilities
(who may be overwhelmed)

26. A few key lessons
learned from ou r
ex p eri en ces t o dat e .

27. Th i n k b i g.
( a s i n , 1 1 x 1 7 b i g )

28. Keep you r dat a
vi su al i z at i ons si mp l e .

29. K n ow you r au di en ce .

30. An t i ci p at e q u est i on s .

31. Make i t
p erson al .

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