How to Make Good and Easy to Understand Reports

Making reports often takes up a lot of time and effort. Apart from processing existing data, you also need the ability to make it look simple and easy to understand. The existence of a report is often interpreted as a summary of activities or projects that have been completed. In an effort to both attract and hold the attention of report readers, the quality of the report you produce needs to:

• Looks attractive and easy to understand from the first page
• Help readers understand that the report contains important information
• Easy to understand and easy to find what readers want to know

Here are some more tips you can use to improve the quality of your reports.

1. Use Design to Clarify Report Purpose

Reporting is done at the end of an activity or project which usually has a limited time to complete. However, that does not mean that time constraints are used as an excuse for making reports as they are.

The design of the report is one of the important things to implement, not only because of its beauty but to make it easier for readers to understand the report. Here are some design-related things you can apply to clarify reports:

• Give different formats between titles, sub-headings, and contents, so they stand out and are easy to read.
• Consider adding a few short sentences or highlighting sections so readers can see what the report is about, what to understand, and how they can use the information.
• Use design features, such as color, photos, or graphics to draw attention and make the report content clear.

2. Make Reports Look Easy to Read

Still related to the previous tips, design is no less important than the contents of the report itself. You can utilize a variety of design strategies to create the perception that your reports are easy to read and understand. The strategy relates to the layout, fonts, and colors chosen as your report design.

Layout: How To Distribute Content On Pages

• Break up text into short paragraphs and bullet points so it's easy to read at a glance.
• Keep the layout simple and uncluttered, with lots of margins and white space (empty areas that give the eye a chance to rest).
• Align text on the left to make it easier to read, readers sometimes ignore the title that is located in the middle.

Font Size and Type

• Make the text large enough for easy reading and choose a font that's easy to read too. Serif fonts have slight strokes at the ends of letters, whereas sans serif fonts do not. So sans serif fonts are easier to read, especially on screens (computers) so they are suitable for reports on websites. Meanwhile, reports in print media can use a combination of serif fonts for the main text and sans serif fonts for titles, subtitles and labels.
• Use bold to highlight important words and phrases. Choose words and phrases that really need bolding, because if the text is too long it is made into blocks or bold letters that will be difficult to read.

Font Color and Contrast

• Maintain high contrast between text and background. Black text on a white or very light background is the easiest to read.
• Be careful when selecting colored text. Avoid giving bright colors like orange or yellow with a bright background too.
• Minimizing the use of reversed-out text or reversed text (light-colored writing on a dark background), because it will be difficult to read, especially in print media. In addition, if the reader prints it himself, then reversed-out text will require more ink and tends to be wasteful.
• Avoid printing text on a colored background unless it's a very light color (such as pale yellow).
• For ease of reading, don't place text on a photo or patterned background.

3. Using Visuals to Strengthen Content

Photos, illustrations, or other design elements can add a friendly, accessible feel and visual interest to your report. Choose visuals that are clear, uncluttered, and support the report but still fit the culture or habits of the intended readers.

Visuals should reflect the subject matter of your report. Use images to emphasize content or key messages, not just to decorate a report. For example, if you are showing work related to surgery, you can add photos or images related to the surgical team performing the operation.

4. Simplify Report Navigation and Retrieve Key Points

Using a combination of text and graphics can provide readers with clear and consistent navigational signals, thereby smoothly guiding them in understanding your report. Those navigational signals help people pay attention to what's in the report and help them find what they're looking for without distracting or misleading them in the report.

Use informative headings or subheadings. Can be designed to stand out more for easy reading at a glance by creating a strong contrast between the text and the title, and leaving enough space around the title.

Consistent. A consistent design helps orient people, facilitates skimming or speed reading, and allows navigation through reports.

• Maintain overall page layout and design features consistent from page to page. Even if each page in the report has different content, it's best if the basic design stays the same.
• Maintain the formatting of headings, bullet points, labels, and other text so that the format remains the same throughout the report.
• In a printed report, place page numbers and other reference text the same on every page.
• In website reports, provide navigation links for each main title and maintain the same position on every page.

5. Format of Charts and Graphs Makes It Interesting and Easy to Understand

Comparison bodies and bar graphs showing data can be intimidating to readers. You can use existing formats to help make this data look cleaner and easier to read.

• Keep the layout clean and tidy. Provide enough space so that the display doesn't look crowded and the size of the text is large enough to make it easy to read.
• Put legends and other important reference material in a prominent place (eg at the top left of a chart).
• Note the use of lines in the column chart.
• Try to avoid using footnotes in data views. Apart from providing a cognitive load for the reader, footnotes are also easy to miss and not everyone knows what a footnote is.

6. Use Color in a Consistent and Meaningful Way

Color is a powerful tool for helping people skim information and pick out important patterns, such as good and bad performance. However, choosing the wrong color can also have an exaggerated and confusing effect for the report reader.

• Use color intentionally to help draw the reader to an important point.
• Keep in mind that some readers have limited color perception. In addition, in website reports, colors may differ from one reader to another due to differences in computer equipment.
• Whichever format you use, the black and white version should be as informative as the color version. Some readers may see photocopies of printed reports or pages of website reports also in black and white versions.
• So that readers are not confused, use color consistently.
• If you use symbols in a comparison chart, use shapes and colors with strong contrast to help readers see performance patterns in the chart.
• Be aware of the impact color can have on your budget especially for printed reports.

Even though many people still rule out using design in their reports, actually applying design to reports is important to practice. Apart from beautifying and making it more attractive to readers, the main goal is for your report to be read, understood and discussed. You don't need to master all the details in the design, but make reports that are neat and consistent so that they are easy to read and understand.