[At the moment I’m working with a lot of multivariate data and need to get some quite complex ideas across to the strategy team. I’ve spent hours and hours playing around with charts in order to present the information in the cleanest and most informative way possible.] I (and I am sure our readers here too) would love to learn from you. I like the way you have used brackets to show the break-up.

[While the objective is to make good looking alternatives, we also want to limit to something that would take as little time as possible.] – If you spend an extra hour playing around, and you discover some new or better way of doing something that you can use again in future, then that hour was a good investment. It depends on what’s at stake.

At the moment I’m working with a lot of multivariate data and need to get some quite complex ideas across to the strategy team. I’ve spent hours and hours playing around with charts in order to present the information in the cleanest and most informative way possible. In my opinion, the presentation of information can be just as important as your original analysis, if you need to ‘market’ a particular action. If you are trying to persuade people to take a particular viewpoint, then charting is marketing, pure and simple.

@Jeff.. I love your chartbuster’s skit. This chart actually looks like the investment department deliberately wanted to hide the information.

Coming to your comments,

1. Don’t neet to be so precise i.e. 2.71 percent adds little more than the ‘easier on the eye ‘ 2.7%

> Agree

2. Don’t need repetititve lables in the ‘Type’ column. Just one heading row each for Bonds, Equities, Other in bold, and format the background of the above header row a light grey so you can tell it’s a first level heading as opposed to the 2nd level headings of Bonds, Equities, and Other

> I feel the same. But I didnt go and do this because excel makes it painful if you want to do this. While the objective is to make good looking alternatives, we also want to limit to something that would take as little time as possible. That is why I didnt suggest this alternative.

3. Should make it clear whether the % of Portfolio for Equities & Bonds relates to the % that these top 10 make up of the entire asset alloctation portfolio (whic is what I suspect) , or just of the Equities and Bonds subset. Better to show what % they make up of the equities group, because the story you’re trying to tell is ‘how is your risk managed across your equities portfolio’. You’ve already shown how the equities risk is managed across the entire portfolio, so no need to break this down into how individual equites make up the portfolio.

> Unfortunately I have very little idea if these 2 tables of data is inter-related. If I knew the data better, I would surely have made better charts with different axes and values.

4. I don’t think you need the asset class in both the graph legend and in the y series description. Get rid of the legend, and instead just have the words Bonds, Equities, and Other under the graph. But don’t repeat them – just draw some kind of visual bracket that shows that ‘Bonds’ relates to the first three series, Equities relates to the next 6 series, and Other to the last two.

> I like the way you have solved this in your example.

5. When using text on top of colours, such as you have in your legend, make sure there’s as much contrast as possible between the text font color and the background colour. Readability is key, and many people have eyesight like mine.

> I will keep this in mind and next time we bust (or make) a chart, we will try to use shades of same color or simpler primary colors.

6. Should also consider whether colours will pose a problem to the significant amount of viewers with color blindness. I’d use three shades of grey rather than three completely different colors – the human eye is great at picking up different shades of the same colours, and this will look less ‘jarring’.

> Same as 5.

7. I’d be inclined to have equities to the far left of your Asset Application graph, even though bonds contribute more to the entire mix, because the very large UK series would look more pleasing to me if it was on the left rather than sticking up like PHD’s hair in the photo above in the middle of the graph

> Good idea…

8. Put some kind of units on the numbers above the series in the graph. Make it clear that 23 means 23% – adding just one more character means people don’t have to go and look for what the units are somewhere else. I’d probably prefer a legent, rather than numbers at the top, but that’s just me.

> good suggestion.

It’s in excel 2007 format, but includes pictures in case the charts don’t render well in pre 2007 versions (which is usually the case).

The goal of the investment company concerted should be to educate investors, while making it very easy for them to assimilate the information. Granted, anything proposed above is a heck of a lot better than their donut charts!

Cheers. Jeff

I agree with last 2 comments from Jeff. In the first chart asset break up can be given as a pie chart on right hand corner.