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Practical Charts Masterclass

Nick Desbarats
Your instructor
Nick Desbarats
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Workshop includes:

  • 🍵 Tea, coffee, snacks and drinks during the whole day
  • 🥪 Lunch
  • 📒 Paper and pen/pencil

Full-day workshop • Monday, October 28, 2024.
Do you design products that include charts? If you haven’t had specific training on how to visualize data effectively, there’s a good chance that your charts are leaving users confused, bored, unmoved, or—worst of all—with an incorrect understanding of the underlying data.

This intensive, one-day workshop equips participants with the essential skills that are required to design charts that are clear, compelling, and professional-looking, and that avoid accidentally misrepresenting the underlying data.


Here’s What You Should Be Expecting:

  • Inspiring & Immersive

    A full day of teaching in a small group

  • Interactive & Practical

    Plenty of time for practice & feedback

  • Hands-on exercises

    With reviews by your teacher

  • Cooperate

    Learn from your teacher and other attendees

  • Dedicated Q&A time

    To ask all your questions

  • Digital Smashing Certificate

    A well-deserved reward for your work


549 .00 Register for this workshop → Get a single workshop, or bundle with a conference.

🎪  Save up to 25% on this workshop with a Smashing Membership.

Major topics include:

  • Formatting non-data elements (gridlines, tick marks, shading, etc.)
  • Formatting scales (categorical, quantitative, time, interval)
  • Choosing colors
  • Formatting legends
  • Formatting text, numbers and dates
  • Showing data that has complex structure
  • Using interactive filters and animations effectively
  • Making charts obvious (effective titles, callouts, highlighting, etc.)
  • Making charts less boring
  • Tips to continue improving and the future of data visualization

Design guidelines are demonstrated (not just explained) through realistic examples and interactive challenges, with plenty of time for Q&A and ad hoc discussions.

A person with a laptop

This workshop is half of the content from Nick Desbarats’ two-day Practical Charts course, which he’s delivered in over a dozen countries at organizations such as NASA, the UN, Yale University, Bloomberg, and Shopify.

In order to fit this course into the one-day format of Smashing Conference workshops, the important topic of chart type selection won’t be covered, however, this topic is covered in detail in the Practical Charts PDF and eBook that workshop participants will receive (see below).

What You’ll Take Away

Nick Desbarats

  • Electronic (PDF and EPUB) versions of Nick’s Amazon #1 New Release Practical Charts book, on which this workshop is based
  • 14 one-page “cheat sheet” handouts that summarize all key takeaways
  • A PDF of all (300+!) course slides
  • Most importantly, the skills required to create charts like a designer with decades of data visualization experience.

Who Is This Workshop For?

This workshop will be of value to those with no prior data visualization knowledge, however, those with substantial prior data visualization knowledge are also likely to pick up many new tips and guidelines from this world-class course.

What Hardware/Software Do You Need?

No hardware or software is needed for this workshop; all exercises are conducted using printed handouts.

About Nick Desbarats

As an independent educator and best-selling author, Nick Desbarats has taught data visualization and information dashboard design to thousands of professionals in over a dozen countries at organizations such as NASA, Bloomberg, Visa, The United Nations, and Shopify.

Nick is the author of the Amazon #1 New Release “Practical Charts” (2023), and has lectured at Yale, the University of Toronto, and The Victoria University of Wellington (New Zealand).

Time & Location

This full-day workshop will take place the day before SmashingConf. The workshop will be running from 9:30 to 17:30 on Monday, October 28.

The workshop is happening at Vestar, Lamorinierestraat 53, 2018 Antwerpen. Google Maps

Schedule for Monday, October 28

9:00 – Doors open, Registration
9:30 – Introduction & Kick-off
11:00 – Coffee Break
13:00 – Lunch
14:00 – Afternoon Session
15:30 – Coffee Break
17:30 – The End

Save 100 EUR when signing up for the conference and a workshop!

549 .00 Register for this workshop → Get a single workshop, or bundle with a conference.

🎪  Save up to 25% on this workshop with a Smashing Membership.