Jon Schwabisch recently proposed ten guidelines for better table design.

Next to the academic paper, Jon shared his recommendations in a Twitter thread.

I recently published "Ten Guidelines for Better Tables" in the Journal of Benefit Cost Analysis (@benefitcost) on ways to improve your data tables.

Here's a thread summarizing the 10 guidelines.

Full paper is here: https://t.co/VSGYnfg7iP pic.twitter.com/W6qbsktioL

— Jon Schwabish (@jschwabish) August 3, 2020

Let me summarize them for you:

• Right-align your numbers
• Left-align your texts
• Use decimals appropriately (one or two is often enough)
• Display units (e.g., $, %) sparsely (e.g., only on first row)
• Highlight outliers
• Highlight column headers
• Use subtle highlights and dividers
• Use white space between rows and columns
• Use white space (or dividers) to highlight groups
• Use visualizations for large tables