Whether you identify as a designer or a non-designer, I think we can all agree that we are living in an era where short and easily digestible materials are preferable to dense reports. We have recently seen renewed interest in the field of data visualization, with formats such as infographics and one-pagers in high demand. At the same time, many organizations have limited funding and training opportunities available to purchase and learn design programs. Fortunately, there are a number of free and low-cost tools available online with equally low learning curves, allowing both designers and non-designers to create polished products.

I spend a lot of time thinking about how to best meet the needs of my clients. One of the ways to do this is by keeping up with innovations in evaluation and other related fields. So naturally one of the questions I had been asking myself during the past year leading up to the 2016 American Evaluation Association Conference (#Eval16) was, “what are the current trends in evaluation?” Here are some themes that I’m hearing in my own work and those that I heard at Eval16: 1) Design, 2) Databases, 3) Evaluation Capacity Building, 4) Cultural Responsiveness, 5) Communication.