From Data to Display: Telling Graphics and Tables

Workshop will take place on: Fr, 10.04.2026, 09.00-13.00 & Fr, 24.04.2025, 09.00-13.00

Target Group: Master’s students, doctoral candidates, and all researchers with a doctorate

Register: From Data to Display

Language: English

Description: The effective presentation of quantitative information is often not given a lot of attention to in doctoral education; it is rather assumed that early-stage researcher already have both, knowledge and skills. The only feedback scientists might get on their scientific displays is on the fly when publishing papers or giving presentations. This lack of education in visual communication can result in badly chosen or simply wrong types of displays, which can impede the understanding of readers or the auditorium. In the worst case, inappropriate data visualization can lead to misinterpretation.

This workshop will counter these shortcomings. The workshop participants will get familiar with the basics of effective displays. They will experience, how people perceive and thus “read” graphics and identify, what kind of display types (e.g., table or graph; what types of graphs for which data) are best/not suited for certain problems. Hands-on exercises will help the participants to put the theory into practice. Therefore, the trainer will provide data for selected problems to be worked on by the attendees, partly making use of a computer software of their choice (e.g., Excel, R). In addition, the participants are invited to work on their own displays. The group will review the presented examples and discuss suggestions for improvements based on the newly acquired knowledge. Depending on the attendees’ interests, general requirements for tables and displays as to publications in journals are outlined.

The overall goal of the workshop is not to create just visually appealing graphical data presentations, but to understand what elements and characteristics are needed for an effective display of data in a specific context. Participants will acquire the skill to choose the best medium for their problems and to use the right visual components to communicate their results unambiguously.

Prerequisites: none, but you should work with data and displays by yourself, plan to do it or show interest in the topic.

About the trainer: Bettina Lackner is a trained landscape planner and (geo-)physicist. She has long-term research and hands-on experience in handling and analyzing data and communicating analysis results to various audiences. Before her current occupation as biostatistician, Tina was the scientific coordinator of a FWF doctoral program at the University of Graz and is thus familiar with the challenges and struggles of researchers during their doctoral studies.