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Short diagnostic hints for the two Practice on your own problems in this chapter. Attempt each problem before opening the hint. Complete answers appear in Appendix G of The Defensible Decision: Practice Workbook.
Problem 1 — the over-dense KPI-card page
Restated: Copilot generates a Q3 sales-summary page with twelve KPI cards, four line charts, three bar charts, one map, and two tables. The Big Idea is «North America met plan; APAC missed by 12%.» Name which visuals earn their place, which do not, and the one-sentence Refine direction that removes the rest.
Show a diagnostic hint
Diagnostic cue. Remove every visual that does not earn a decision role; hierarchy should serve one takeaway.
Complete answers appear in Appendix G of The Defensible Decision: Practice Workbook.
Problem 2 — the five-color-of-brand chart
Restated: A marketing colleague sends you a chart where all five bars are colored differently using the company’s brand palette. The Big Idea calls for the top bar («Product X grew 40%») to land first. Rewrite the color instruction so the pre-attentive attribute actually works, and name why the current five-color version fails.
Show a diagnostic hint
Diagnostic cue. Use color as a selective attention signal, not as a brand palette applied to every series.
Complete answers appear in Appendix G of The Defensible Decision: Practice Workbook.
Related on this site
- Chapter 5 companion page — further reading, self-check quiz, and the focus-and-decluttering activity.
- Chart gallery — examples of pre-attentive attributes used as emphasis vs distinguishing.
- All chapter companion pages.
- Feedback — share corrections and improvement opportunities across all chapters.
About the three-tier Practice format
Each chapter of the book closes with a three-tier Practice block adapted from Cole Nussbaumer Knaflic's course-adoption pattern in Storytelling with Data: Let's Practice!: Practice with us (one worked problem with full solution in the book), Practice on your own (open problems with complete answers in Appendix G of the Practice Workbook; this page offers short diagnostic hints), and Practice at work (an open-ended prompt to apply the chapter's move to a live artifact). This page hosts the middle tier.