Formatting - call me superficial, but aesthetics do matter (part 1)

Formatting – call me superficial, but aesthetics do matter (part 1)

Whenever I am working on a spreadsheet, I always like to be thoughtful about the viewer and the medium.  For example, if I know that the viewer will be a client paying extravagant fees for my work, I want my work to be stylish, clean, elegant, and near perfect.  In this case, my work will most likely be pasted into a deck, so design and simplicity is more important than functionality and flexibility.  On the contrary, if I know that other analysts will be editing and tinkering with my spreadsheet, I want to focus on functionality, flexibility, and ease of manipulation.

Suppose you want to present the data below to a client in a deck.

Clearly, the information isn’t presented in a very attractive manner.  The numbers should be formatted, gridlines removed, titles bolded, headings for numerical columns right aligned, borders drawn in, etc.  Below are a few ways to enhance the look and feel.

A minimalist approach, used for those that prefer simplicity:

A trendy, modern approach, used for those that like to add some style to their data.  Notice the use of alternate row shading to make it easier for the user to differentiate between rows.

A boxier, conventional approach, used for those who prefer a more conservative look.

As you can see, there are many things you can do to add style and creativity in presenting your findings.  Of course, there’s no right or wrong approach; the important thing is to be thoughtful of the context and your purpose.  If a certain column is more important than the rest, then go ahead and box it, bold it, give it a different color, etc.  If something looks ugly, then think about how to make it look better.  If your company uses a standard color scheme, then use those colors.  There truly is an infinite number of possibilities in designing client-ready, value-added exhibits.

However, there are certain things that I like to do.  I generally don’t like to merge cells when centering words over multple cells, because I feel that it makes it more difficult to manipulate your exhibits later on.  Instead, I type in the word in the left most cell of the region that I want to center across, highlight the region, then choose “Center Across Selection” under Format Cells > Alignment (highlight region, CTRL + 1, Alignment tab).  I generally like to keep my titles short.  If they are too long, I use multiple rows.  I like to group headings together under 1 heading if they are related.  For example, I grouped “Projected Yearly Sales” and “R&D Expense” under “Financials”.  Columns should be as thin as possible so that the exhibit itself can be blown up on a deck.  I also like to remove gridlines on exhibits.  Gridlines are helpful when you are running calculations or modeling, but they are ugly.  Therefore, they should not be included in a client exhibit.

To see the exhibits that I built on a spreadsheet, please click here.