Data Viz in Excel

I am really glad you're here.

The ability to clearly communicate is what sets one analysis apart from another. They say a picture is worth a thousand words, and for good reason.

Few things are more frustrating for your analysis when you need to give long explanations to clarify what the graph is saying, or people misinterpret what the data says!

Why not just let the graph say it?

Creating a good visualisation helps you think clearly about what you are trying to say.

Start implementing some of these practices and take time to learn what else is possible. Good visualisations may get a few appreciative nods in your next report or presentation, but the real value will be when people just "get" what you are trying to say - and that's the goal.

Before we start with some examples...

I highly recommend you buy a copy of Effective Data Visualization by Stephanie Evergreen. It's got step by step guides for developing clear graphs in Excel. It ranks them by difficulty and also provides some background on why the graphs look good.

She has a another book called Presenting Data Effectively which has also had excellent reviews.

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Bar Charts are one of the most commonly used methods of displaying data. Let's have a look at cleaning up one. Granted, you probably wont have started off with one as ugly as this!

Download the example and exercise sheet.

View the original post from Dark Horse Analytics: http://www.darkhorseanalytics.com/portfolio/data-looks-better-naked-bar-charts

Adding Benchmark lines are a great solution to avoid having too many bars in a chart.

Adding a Benchmark Line to a GraphThis simple line packs so much power. Adding a benchmark line to a graph gives loads of context for the viewer. Here’s how to make one right inside Excel. It’s so easy you might pass ou…

Dot plots are surprisingly quite fun to make. Maybe because the results look so good? It s a good way to show the progression of results between two time periods.

Easy Dot Plots in ExcelLast month I was at a Naomi Robbins’ workshop and she was pretty emphatic that dot plots are the better method of visualization, as compared to bar charts. The reason goes back to Cleveland&#…

Sometimes you need to compare the same categories from two different groups. Back-to-back charts are another handy way to doing this.

Making Back-to-Back Graphs in ExcelLet’s say we’re interested in comparing how two groups – oh, teachers and principals – responded to a survey. One way to visually display that comparison would be a bar grap…

Now that you've got a taster of how to make visualisations a whole lot better, go and buy Stephanie's book!