Comments on: Design principles for better charts: simplicity

By: Jorge

Jorge — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 14:52:20 +0000

Chris: just select a single data point, not the whole series.

By: Chris Capel

Chris Capel — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 14:39:56 +0000

Can you give a hint how you plot one label at each serie?
If I use Data Labels / Series Name, I get the series name at every data point. When you use a TextBox, it does not move with the line, if the data is updated.

By: 10 x 10 Tips to improve your (Excel) charts: formatting | Jorge Camoes' Charts

Mon, 09 Mar 2009 13:59:48 +0000

[...] Apply sound design principles; [...]

By: admin

admin — Sat, 12 Jan 2008 00:34:02 +0000

Tom, you are right. I have that in my miscellaneous tips in the 10×10 series. I confess that’s something I don’t always remember (usually my internal clients know where the data comes from).

By: Tom Johnson

Tom Johnson — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 21:22:30 +0000

And, though it might not exactly fit this category of discussion, I would argue that the source of the data should always be present.

-tj

By: Tony

Tony — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 02:10:07 +0000

I hear that Tahoma is a pretty popular choice. Also Calibri is pretty nice. By default I have Gill Sans MT in my Excel.

By: Lee

Lee — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 18:22:17 +0000

I guess I got lucky – our corporate Windows XP install comes with Gill Sans MT. I use it extensively as a result.

I’d love to hear thoughts on the appropriate font to use for data density in charts and overall readability.

By: admin

admin — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 22:18:38 +0000

Tony, grossu: Quoting Einstein, “everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.” We must stop at a point where the marginal benefits are irrelevant or start to be negative. I don’t know if we can define where that point is. Do we know when we get there? Is it defined by growing perception costs? (Kosslyn believes that that happens in some of Tufte’s designs.)

Lee: I think Gill Sans is not available in a standard Windows installation, is it? If not, that can be a problem.

By: grossu

grossu — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 20:55:05 +0000

If we discuss details. I would have reduced the number of horizontal lines to three, and just removed a vertical line. And most importantly, do not leave anonymous title. Each chart must convey the Idea. I would supply with a title here: “The growth rate of product 2 is higher and will take the quarter of market to the next February. “

By: Lee Ragsdale

Lee Ragsdale — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 13:19:47 +0000

Great article. I run a macro in Excel every time I build a chart that gets rid of the default format junk.

I like the look of moving the y-axis title and UOM to the top of the chart.

Two thoughts:
* Try Gill Sans for the font (per Tufte) – much easier on the eyes than the MS defaults
* Match the data label color to the dataset line color – easier to discern when the data intermingles.