A good chart tells a story. It is as simple as that.
Here is a fantastic example of what a good chart is. See the Time spent eating vs. National obesity rate chart below
It takes may be 5 seconds to understand what the chart is. And then you know the story. What is more interesting is, it instigates the readers curiosity to ask questions and understand the data. For eg.
- Q: Why obesity is high in countries where they spend less time eating?
- May be because of the fast food
- Q: What are the Turkish people eating for 160 minutes a day?
- May be they like the turkey cold. Okay, bad joke
The chart itself is very simple and easy. But it brilliantly juxtaposes two pieces of data: Obesity rates in countries and Time spent eating per day, to tell a story.
Are your charts telling a story?
Hat tip to Marginal Revolution for the chart.
More charting principles: Why KISS is important when it comes to charts | Vizooalization – 5 Lessons from zoo on visualization
8 Responses to “Create a Combination Chart, Add Secondary Axis in Excel [15 Second Tutorial]”
[...] Select the “daily completed” column and add it to the burn down chart. Once added, change the chart type for this series to bar chart (read how you can combine 2 different chart types in one) [...]
[...] set the height series to be plotted on secondary axis. Learn more about combining 2 chart types and adding secondary axis in [...]
[...] Excel Combination Charts – What are they? [...]
[...] To show the years, I have used another dummy series and plotted it on secondary axis (related: how to add secondary axis?) [...]
Thanks for this one!
[...] Choisissez la colonne « Daily Completed » et ajoutez-la au graphique. Une fois ajoutée, changez le type de graphique pour cette série à histogramme (lisez comment combiner 2 types de graphiques en un : combine 2 different chart types in one) [...]
How do i create a chart that has negative numbers on axis x and y and plot them correctly? I cannot seem to understand how to do this, please help.
Thanks.
Nat
You can also plot 2 or more Y axes in Excel using EZplot or Multy_Y from Office Expander.com
There is a demo version to try.
Cheers.