In this post, I list the specific chart types that, in my experience, stump audiences most often (including, sometimes, senior executives).
Read moreNo, everyone DOESN’T know how to read a scatterplot
When I’m chatting with other chart creators, it sometimes feels like there are two different groups that live in two completely different worlds:
The first world is populated by those who create charts for relatively data-savvy audiences. In this world, chart types like scatterplots and histograms are “basic” chart types that everyone knows how to read.
The second world is populated by those who regularly create charts for “non-data” audiences who often struggle with anything other than simple bar, line, or pie charts.
Read moreChart makeover Video: Choosing meaningful Colors
You might have seen this brilliant piece of viral marketing from cybersecurity firm Hive Systems, that seems to pop up every year in my social media feeds. While it's a great piece of content marketing, the color choices leave a few things to be desired, IMHO, which I discuss in this blog post.
Read moreShould you avoid using “advanced” chart types? (+ Black Friday Sale!)
I’ve seen the following scenario play out many times in the organizations with which I work:
A chart creator decides to “get creative” by using a histogram, connected scatterplot, ribbon chart or some other chart type that they know to be unfamiliar to the audience. They could have used a simpler, more familiar chart type to say the same things about the data, but they wanted to “challenge the audience,” or “teach them new chart-reading skills.”
The chart then goes over like a lead balloon, however. The audience misreads the chart, skips reading it altogether, or gets annoyed with the chart creator, who then feels bitter, believing their audience to be intellectually lazy or just dumb.
Read more“I don’t want red on my dashboards. It looks too negative.”
I first heard this objection from a client a number of years ago and it took me so off-guard that I just stared at them and then mumbled something about getting back to them on that. It just seemed like such a bizarre thing to say…
Since that time, I’ve heard this objection at least half a dozen times and have had a chance to formulate a couple of responses that usually convince dashboard users to rethink their “no red” policy.
Read moreNew video! Why I don't use Marimekko charts (and what I use instead)
You may or may not be familiar with Marimekko charts, but they're popular in some fields, such as management consulting.
To see why I avoid using this chart type and what I use instead, check out my latest video (8 mins.).
Read moreDashboards should only show the “most important” metrics… right?
I regularly hear complaints from dashboard creators that go something like this:
"My users consider dozens of metrics (or more) to be ‘KPIs’ and they want me to put them all on the dashboard."
"My users don’t understand that, among all the metrics that we could show on the dashboard, only three to five of them are truly important. The rest are just noise that distract from the truly important numbers, and so don’t belong on the dashboard."
Think about that for a second, though. Does it seem plausible that someone could run an entire team, department, or organization based on just five numbers?
Read moreAvoid legends, footnotes, and other forms of "indirect" labeling in your charts! (whenever possible...)
As these simple before and after examples show, direct labeling is a simple fix that can significantly improve the readability of your charts.
Read moreCreativity is great in charts... except when it gets in the reader's way!
I recently saw people praising a chart from The European Correspondent on social media comparing the years of compulsory schooling for different European countries.
While it's certainly creative, when I tried to actually read the chart and spot the insights that were in the callouts, I had to work pretty hard, and some insights were difficult—or even impossible—to spot. In this blog post I critique the original design and propose a redesign that I think performs better.
Read moreStop using confusing date formats in your charts!
One of my pet peeves is dates in charts that are ambiguous, but the problem can easily by avoided by choosing good date formats.
Read moreI've stopped using colored-region ("choropleth") maps. Should you?
Probably the most common way to show values on a map is the "colored-region" or "choropleth" method. I'm not the first to notice, however, that this method presents some potentially serious perceptual risks.
Read moreFree webinar recording: "How to choose a chart type (it's trickier than you think)"
I was recently invited to deliver a webinar as part of JMP's great Statistically Speaking series. The webinar consisted of a 35-minute talk entitled "How to choose a chart type (it's trickier than you think)," followed by about 25 minutes of Q&A from a very engaged (and large) audience. The recording is now available to view online.
Read moreNew video! Step-by-step makeover of an email subscriber count chart
I recently logged into the dashboard for my email list management app and noticed that the chart of my subscriber count over time suffered from several common design problems that made it unnecessarily hard to read and potentially misleading. In particular, the quantitative and time scales were less than ideal.
Check out this short (8-minute) video of me fixing these problems step-by-step:
Read moreNew video: Redesigning a chart of ages of first-time mothers in European countries
I recently recorded a video of me turning an “OK” chart into a great chart, step-by-step, to make it easier to interpret and to make key takeaways much more obvious.
Let me know if you agree or disagree with any of my changes!
How many slices can you put in a pie chart? (New video!)
When it comes to the maximum number of parts that should be shown as a pie chart, there are plenty of opinions floating around out there. In this article, I argue that the maximum number of slices depends on the situation and that, in certain situations, even a 30-slice (!) pie chart can be the best choice.
Read moreBig news! Practical Charts ON DEMAND will be available on June 25th!
An on-demand (pre-recorded) version of my flagship Practical Charts course will be available on June 25th! This self-paced video course consists of 6.5 hours of video in 44 lessons, and is available for 25% off during the pre-sale period (before June 25th).
Read moreWhen to use a bar chart
When should you use a bar chart instead of another chart type? Easy question, right?
As it turns out, choosing when to use a bar chart or another chart type is surprisingly complex. In fact, I’d argue that, in a way, bar charts are actually the most complex chart type. Sound strange? Then read this article…
Read moreThe one (rare) situation in which it makes sense to use a single stacked bar chart
I’ve recently seen a few comments on LinkedIn from people who don’t feel that it *ever* makes sense to use a stacked bar chart to show the breakdown of a single total. While relatively rare, there is a specific situation in which I think it *does* makes sense, though. What is that situation? Find out in my latest article...
Read more“Keep it simple” is NOT good chart-design advice
Creating “simple” charts is much harder than it sounds. Telling a chart creator to “keep it simple” is like telling a student driver to “avoid traffic accidents.” Well, yes, obviously, but how, exactly, does one do that? While avoiding accidents sounds simple, it requires learning hundreds of rules of the road and days of training and practice.
Read moreHow I wrote "Practical Charts"
I’ve been asked a number of times how I went about writing Practical Charts because it’s so, well, practical. This is a wonderful compliment to receive and so, as a cheap thank-you, here’s the story behind the book.
Read more