After a week, he seems to be recovering well. He was in the ICU for three days, but that seems to be a normal procedure in these cases. He may be home early next week. The doctors are impressed.

He was healthy his entire life (this was his first serious surgery). Genetics play a major role here for sure, but there is something else: he likes to walk.

He walked his entire life, never bought a car, never took a bus to/from work. It’s easy to estimate how much he walked over a 27-year period, when we were living in the same house and he was working in the same factory: around 52,000 kilometers (32,000 miles)! That’s more than five round trips from New York to San Francisco. Walking. And he kept walking after retiring.

In an era of instant gratification and no-time-to-exercise, my father is reaping the rewards of a lifestyle he chose many, many years ago.

Funny thing: he was unaware of this, and neither did I. I was just trying to cheer him up before surgery and came up with this estimate. Now we are playing with the data, converting 52,000 km to a more manageable unit (130 round trips to his home town), finding his longest walk… This is something that he’s proud of and likes to talk about.

And you know what? I didn’t have to make a chart, I didn’t have to add junk, I didn’t have to sell my findings. Just a perfect match between data and audience. I will never have that smile from my audience again.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to follow my father’s steps (literally). I’m already 49,000 kilometers behind him.

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Post from: Excel Charts Blog.

The Healing Power of Statistics

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The original post is titled The Healing Power of Statistics , and it came from The Excel Charts Blog .

Let me give you a real world example. Is there anything unusual in this time series, anything that stands out?

No? Are you sure? Take a closer look and you’ll see it. Too much guesswork? Well, why don’t you just use a chart?

Can you see it now? Of course you can. Try not to see it…

This is clearly an error. I just fund it in this table from the US Bureau of Census (I’ll ask them to fix it).

If you need to proofread your tables start by a quick check using a chart. You can select the entire table or a single series. Look for inconsistencies and outliers. Many outliers are simple mistakes, but sometimes there is a good reason behind them.

This kind of errors is almost impossible to avoid, but the obvious ones are easily spotted, so the next time you publish a table do yourself a favor and scan the data using a chart before hitting the publish button.

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Post from: Excel Charts Blog.

Using Charts to Validate Your Tables – US Census Bureau Example

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The original post is titled Using Charts to Validate Your Tables – US Census Bureau Example , and it came from The Excel Charts Blog .

Do yourself a favor and and write down the questions that define your project. Group them meaningfully and use them as chart titles. Each chart may prove irrelevant or force new questions. Write them down. Repeat the process.

Jacques Bertin tells us that a chart should be able to answer elementary (“how much did we sell in March?”), intermediate (“what happened in the North district?”) and global (“how does our product compares with the market?”) questions. If it doesn’t, then it is an inefficient construction and should be redesigned or removed. This is also a simple way to identify redundant charts.

Don’t replace information overload with chart overload. Similar questions may require a single answer. Create a single, interactive chart and let the users find their own answers.

Embrace the questions, delegate the answers.

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Post from: Excel Charts Blog.

You want answers, but do you have questions?

You may also be interested in:

1. 12 Data Visualization Questions I Have No Answers For
2. Information visualization: frequently asked questions
3. Is Your Chart Really Answering Your Question?

The original post is titled You want answers, but do you have questions? , and it came from The Excel Charts Blog .

Let me play devil’s advocate here. A large majority of charts you’ll find in the corporate sector is irrelevant, if not misleading (check some annual reports for a grim picture). Corporate presentations are nothing more than futile rituals of impression management where the presenter gets his “wow factor” not from how insightful his presentation is, but from how cool the rendering of his 3D flying charts are. Serious managers will never use charts as decision support tools (“just show me the numbers”). Finally, there is scientific evidence that charts will not improve the decision quality (“naive superiority hypothesis”, according to this article).

So, give me a table report with some well chosen key indicators and leave charts to lazy marketers.

How would you respond to this?

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Post from: Excel Charts Blog.

Are charts really useful for decision-making?

You may also be interested in:

1. Don't Try to Be Memorable (Grumpy Old Man's Guide to Making Charts)
2. Don't Try to Be Creative (Grumpy Old Man's Guide to Making Charts)
3. Don’t Try to Be Funny (Grumpy Old Man’s Guide to Making Charts)

The original post is titled Are charts really useful for decision-making? , and it came from The Excel Charts Blog .