Choose carefully when deciding what to include in your report design. Every element you include, whether it is a cell border, background color, chart or text communicates information of some kind.

Tufte talks about data density in visual report design - packing as many data points into as small an area as possible and getting rid of or minimizing everything else - the genesis of ‘spark lines‘.

I tend to think in terms of information density. Sure, the data is the important part and I want to make it is the focus of the design but because I am trying to make understanding easy and am trying to drive action, I want to make sure that every element in the report design is informing the user.

If an element is not providing the information that I want to or if I am unsure of what an element might be communicating - I leave it out. I don’t want to distract from the point, don’t want to provide mixed messages.

Everything counts, make sure that you know what your report is saying, in all it’s parts.