What kind of graph is this if performed in EXCEL? NYT blog link provided

[brian sullivan]

Greetings Chandoo Community,

The link below is a NYT's graph that an electric drop down presentation. My questions for this community are these graphs that are replicable in EXCEL? If this is the case, what would they be called & what functions would perform them?

However, these look to be line graphs designed in a program such as Tableau.

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/...moduleDetail=undefined&pgtype=Multimedia&_r=0

 

[Chihiro]

It's simple scatter chart. Each data point being named with "Year". Plotted against Oil Price and Production.

However, to connect data points with directional line (arrow) you need VBA coding (or manually done).

 

[Hui]

Here is a simple Scatter chart done in Excel 2010


Things to note
You need to set the transparency of the Markers to a middle value 40-60% as otherwise the arrow heads are hidden

You can't add a gap to the arrows to keep them away from the data points

You can add the animation like they have using fairly simple VBA and named formulas for the data ranges

By selecting a single point you can change segments of the line to different colors

 

[brian sullivan]

Thanks for the feedback here. What I'm interested in learning more is what's the (Dashboard/VBA technique) that enables the chart to show "flow animation"?