Hi friends, readers & fans of Chandoo.org,
I want to share a happy news with you all.
On Saturday (1st of February), we bought a new car. It is Toyota Innova. Pictures below (click to enlarge.)
Thank you & Excel
Before I tell you why I bought another car or how it is, first let me tell you this – Thank you. You constantly inspire me to learn more and share my knowledge. You support my little business in numerous ways – by joining our courses, purchasing our templates and recommending our site. With out your support and love, I would not even thought about buying a comfortable and lovely car like this. Thank you.
And I want to thank Microsoft Excel too. It is the reason why today my family is living a happy, healthy and peaceful life. Thank you Excel.
Why another car?
Long time readers of Chandoo.org remember that we already have a car. And if you know me, you know that I like to consume less and lead a frugal life. So adding another car to our family seemed like a conflicting choice. But we (my wife Jo & I) rationalized this by,
- Our current car doesn’t have any security features (no airbags, ABS etc.) So when we go on long drives, we have this nagging thoughts in our minds.
- Our current car is good for 4 people. As we frequently travel with other family members or friends, going out became an exercise in human squeezing.
- Driving Alto is fun, but driving it for anything more than an hour proved to a back-breaking punishment.
After spending few weeks short-listing car models, we narrowed down to our choice to Toyota Innova. Almost everyone we asked said, ‘Get Innova, it is boringly reliable’. It matched our expectations.
A little more about our car
- Our car is Innova ZX variant.
- It can seat 7 people (2,2 and 3)
- It has good safety features (2 airbags, ABS etc.)
- It drives like a car instead of MPV. Very convenient and comfortable.
- It has all the features you would expect in a car of this size.
- We paid roughly Rs. 1,800,000 (US $28,000) for this. No loan of course (I do not like buying things that I cannot afford.)
Thank you once again
Almost everyday I wake up with a smile, spend the day learning, feeling passionate about my work and go to sleep thinking nothing but how fortunate and blessed my family & I are. All thanks to you. Thanks to your kind support, generous attitude and love for learning, we have a home, car and all the comforts anyone can ask for. Thank you.
And thank you Microsoft & Excel for making my life exciting every day.
More personal stories:
18 Responses to “Best Charts to Compare Actual Values with Targets – What is your take?”
Great post. I can't vote, though, because the answer I want to put down is "it depends". As with all visualisations, you've got to take into account your audience, your purpose, technical skills, where it will be viewed, etc.
I'm with Andy: It depends. Some I would use, some I might use, some I won't touch with a barge pole.
Naturally I have comments 🙂
The dial gauge, though familiar, is less easy to read than a linear type of chart (thermometer or bullet). It's really no better than the traffic lights, because all it can really tell you is which category the point falls in: red, yellow, or green.
By the same token, pie charts are so familiar, people don't know they can't read them. Remember how long it takes kids to learn to read an analog clock?
Bullet charts don't show trends.
With any of the charts that have a filled component and a marker or ine component, it makes more sense to use the filled component (area/ column) for target, and the lines or markers for actual.
[...] Best Charts to Compare Actual values with Targets (or Budgets … [...]
I voted for #6 even though I agree with the other comments that it depends.
The majority of the votes are for the #2, thermometer chart. I still have yet to understand what happens when you are above plan/goal, which was brought up in yesterday's post.
Also, I agree with Jon in that it would be better to flip the series and make the filled part the target or goal and the line or marker the actual.
I am also a fan of using text when appropriate if the data is among other metrics in a type of dashboard. Calling it out by saying actual and % achievement is a good option.
Another "it depends" vote. Are you just looking at one or are you comparing a number of targets with actuals? You didn't include a text box. The problem with sentences is that they can get lost in a page of gray text. A text box can call attention to the numbers and line them up effectively.
I'm with Jon: "Some I would use, some I might use, some I won’t touch with a barge pole" and I'm surprised that some of your readers voted for the last group.
Jon says:
With any of the charts that have a filled component and a marker or line component, it makes more sense to use the filled component (area/ column) for target, and the lines or markers for actual.
Why does this make more sense? I like 6 the way it is, although I would use a heavy dash for the plan/target marker.
"It depends" is also my take. What I usually try to drill into my clients dashboard design is the fu ndamental difference between spot results (am I on target for this month) and long term trends.. I always try to create 3 different set of graphs to represent real perormance:
- spot results vs objectives
- cumulative results vs objectives
- long-term trend (moving average) mostly) to see where we're going
[...] Best Charts to Compare Actual Values with Targets – What is your take? (tags: excel charts) [...]
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Jon says:
With any of the charts that have a filled component and a marker or line component, it makes more sense to use the filled component (area/ column) for target, and the lines or markers for actual.
Why does this make more sense? I like 6 the way it is, although I would use a heavy dash for the plan/target marker.
I totally agree, Bob. I would normally favour a line for the target and a column for the actual, you can see quite easily then which columns break through the line, then.
[...] best charts to compare actual values with targets — den Status mal anders zeigen, z. B. als Tacho [...]
Thermometer charts: "Not appropriate when actual values exceed targets" - this is easily solved by making the "mercury" portion a different color from the border, then you can clearly see where the expected range ends and the actual values keep going.
People seem to knock gauges quite a bit in dashboarding, but trying to show comparison of realtime data between operating sites and targets for each site can easily be done with a bank of gauges that have the optimal operating points at 12 o'clock.
The human eye is great at pattern stripping, and any deviation of a gauge from the expected 12 position will quickly register with an operator and attract his attention. Using a colour background, or meter edge, will also indicate the sensitivity of a particular site.
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I am wondering how will the plotting work, for some of the targets which may have been achieved before time. E.g. for the month of Jul the target was 226 and the actual was 219. So the chart will show a deficit in meeting the target by 7 points but what if this 7 may have been completed earlier in month of June. So ideally it not a deficit.