SQL, data modeling, data quality, EDA, visualization · insight-0071
Write chart titles that state the finding and its scope, not the variables plotted
- Evidence type
- practitioner heuristic
- Difficulty
- easy
- Roles
- Data analyst, Data scientist, ML engineer, Applied AI
- Industries
- cross-industry
Summary: situation, action, reason, boundary
Situation
A slide is titled "Bookings by month, 2023-2024" and the presenter explains the point verbally.
Action
Title with the claim the data support, including scope and size (hypothetical title: "Intl-short bookings grew 12% in 2024 while domestic stayed flat"), use the subtitle for the metric definition and period, and add one line on the main interpretation limit.
Reason
A finding-led title tells the reader what to look for, and the stated limit protects against over-reading.
Boundary
Executive decks, reports, dashboards with a narrative panel and written analyses.
Symptom or risk
Readers who skim or receive the deck later draw their own, often different, conclusion; the chart's purpose is lost.
Exceptions
Exploratory dashboards that serve many questions should use neutral descriptive titles.
Trade-offs
Assertive titles must be updated when the data change, or they become false.
Pitfalls
Writing a title the chart does not support, such as a causal claim from a correlation.
Example
Hypothetical limit line: "Bookings on capacity-constrained flights understate demand; true growth may be higher."