Comments on: 14 Misconceptions About Charts and Graphs

By: Jorge

Jorge — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 21:28:48 +0000

I was never able to make a chart in Cognos worth sharing… People tell me Cognos 8.4 is much better but I never tried.

By: clickitysplit

clickitysplit — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 21:20:25 +0000

looking for links that point to ANY method for producing cognos charts that look better than, say, excel 5.0. given the cash spend required to acquire cognos, the charting (so far to me) looks pretty horrific.

By: clickitysplit

clickitysplit — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 21:18:44 +0000

one could argue there are an infinite number of things to consider ‘not’ doing when creating a chart. 14 doesn’t even come close, and I have the data to prove it. i just can’t figure out how best to present it…=]

By: Jorge Camoes

Jorge Camoes — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 08:48:21 +0000

@Arturas: The idea is to link each item to a more detailed post. I’ll do it as soon as those posts ar published.

By: Arturas

Arturas — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 07:47:07 +0000

Every item could be discussed separately, but i agree with most of the items. Effective usage of charts is very important today for businesses, especially e.g. executive dashboards. We are constantly working on improving our charts data visualization tools , because there is always something that can be done to make it better ))

By: Better Charts for Business: When Business Doesn’t Care

Better Charts for Business: When Business Doesn’t Care — Wed, 20 May 2009 07:43:30 +0000

[...] a chart is not a table, and it shouldn’t be treated as one (this is one of many misconceptions about charts). But you can display the exact value of some relevant data points, provided it doesn’t [...]

By: The influence of the recession on our beloved charts on Datavisualization.ch

The influence of the recession on our beloved charts on Datavisualization.ch — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 07:20:30 +0000

[...] translates those ideas to the display of financial data, suggesting to move away from fancy (”professional looking“) charts to clearer and more meaningful [...]

By: David Locke

David Locke — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 00:00:28 +0000

A graph in a presentation has one audience. That audience is in the room. Hopefully, everyone in the room is there to make a decision or two. The graph contributes to the decision making effort. Yes, it might be biased, but decisions are always constructed, so they are always biased by their builders and their designers. The graph, if it is fit for use, will provide information suitable to its intended audience and purpose.

A single graph can hardly serve more than a single purpose. The more purposes you try to serve with a single graph, the more that graph’s fitness to purpose gets muddled, the more that graph’s fitness to audience gets muddled, and the harder the graph becomes to use. The more purposes you try to serve, the more average the graph’s fitness becomes. The more purposes you try to serve, the more your graph becomes a data dump.

Online, you can link graphs to other graphs and tables. Each of those graphs and tables can be fit to one use, and one use only.

By: The JMH Consulting Blog » Blog Archive » Dashboards for professional education program managers

Wed, 19 Nov 2008 17:24:29 +0000

[...] blog has example dashboards that you can play with. He also has a great list of 14 misconceptions about charts and graphs which are definitely worth reading for anyone who builds charts to tell a story about your [...]

By: Jon Peltier

Jon Peltier — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 23:17:19 +0000

Jenmoocat -

Most of these rules require some judgment. Regarding #8, depending on your audience, a complex chart may be digested in a moment, while a simple chart may never sink in. It depends on the aptitude and attention of the reader. Personally, if I understand a chart instantly, I usually feel shortchanged. On the other hand, I know many high level corporate guys don’t have time for anything that needs more than five seconds of explanation.