In the 41st session of Chandoo.org podcast, Let’s take a trip to data hell and meet 6 ugly, clumsy, confusing charts. I am revisiting a classic Chandoo.org article – 6 Charts you will see in hell.
What is in this session?
In this podcast,
- Quick announcement about Awesome August
- 6 charts you should avoid
- 3D charts
- Pie / donut charts with too many slices
- Too much data
- Over formatting
- Complex charts
- Charts that don’t tell a story
- Conclusions
Listen to this session
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Learn more about which charts to avoid, which ones to make
On Pie charts:
Here is an ugly, clumsy pie chart to prove the point. [ Source: Bill the Lizard ]
- Should you use pie charts? – podcast session 004
- Why 3D pie charts are evil
On making charts when you have too much data:
- Panel charts (or small multiples) in Excel
- Panel Chart case study – Survey results visualized
- Sparklines
On formatting:
- Avoid Gangnam styles
- Impressing your boss with Excel charts – 6 step road map for you – podcast session 029
Transcript of this session:
Download this podcast transcript [PDF]
Do you create any of these charts? Share your story
As a fresh analyst, I created all of these 6 charts. But I quickly realized that each time I made a 3D pie chart, I am selling a small piece of my soul to the devil. So I atoned my sins by scattering everywhere and visiting lots of bars. 😉
What about you? Have you ever created any of these charts? What did your users say when they saw these charts? Share your story in the comments.
Note: This is a part of Awesome August Excel festival.
5 Responses to “CP041: 6 charts you’ll see in hell – v2.0”
I enjoyed listening to pod cast
CP041: 6 charts you’ll see in hell – v2.0
I recommend others to listen
Thanks for educating the community
Love the pie chart you've shown, I have a coworker who needs to see that.
I personally am no fan of pie charts, and I'm still struggling to convince some of our team that we need to get rid of the 3D pie that is used in several of our reports. One trick that seems to be starting to work for this is to pair the chart with a more appropriate chart showing the same data (usually a bar chart). A few people are starting to see the light! 🙂
Oh, and I loved the post back to the Gangnam styles - it's fun to see the 'wackier' side of Excel sometimes.
Keep ut The good work! I enjoy The way you solve problems and how you explain / teach 🙂
Best regards Mr Arve Kvalvik, Norway
Nice post. You did not talk about custom charts in excel or will this be in "Charts you'll see in hell v3" ? 🙂
Thanks for podcast. I really enjoyed it. ????