10 Tips For Great Charts Part 2

6) Emphasize the Important / Deemphasize the Less Important

Charts typically display a lot of information, so the reader needs a quick way to determine which elements are most important. This requires both emphasizing the important and deemphasizing the less important.

There are several common opportunities:

• For both column graphs and bar graphs, increase the width of the column/bar so that it is wider than the gap between them
• Thin and lighten your axis lines
• Reduce the font size and lighten your axis values
• Round off your axis values (and eliminate unnecessary zeros) in Excel by using a custom number type. For example, if you want your max value to be 300K rather than 300,000, select the custom number type and enter #,K. To abbreviate 3 million to 3M, the formula provided by Mr. Excel is a little more complicated: [>=1000000]0,,"M";General

7) Use Color Strategically

Why do we add color to our charts? It’s not to make them pretty. We add color to our charts because it makes them easier to understand. Color has a powerful impact on how users visually process information.

• Generally speaking, stay with a neutral color palette. Excel 2007 has some improved color palettes, however if you still have Excel 2003 it’s easy to change your color palette.
• This allows you to use rich, bright colors for emphasis, but be cautious of using stoplight colors (red, yellow and green). They don’t mean the same thing outside the US and they also cause difficulty for the 10% of us who are color blind. If you have to use them, try to vary color saturation as well. For example, use a lime green and a deeper red. It’s also a good idea to include a graphic indicator such as an up or down arrow to indicate change, rather than rely solely on color.
• Try a color progression to show sequence order (i.e. dark to light indicates most important to least important).
• Preview your chart in black and white to ensure that the color variations can still be differentiated.

8) Ensure Sufficient Contrast

Legibility of your charts is significantly impacted by sufficient contrast between text and background colors. With black and white charts, it’s clearer to determine the required level of contrast, so it is rarely an issue. But as more colors are added, it becomes increasingly difficult to maintain (and judge) sufficient contrast. Colors on the Web offers a free tool that I use for analyzing color contrast. Just enter your background color and the text color and it will tell you whether the contrast is sufficient. Of course, I don’t use this tool every time I add color to a chart, because I have a few color palettes that I typically work with. However, if I client asks me to use a new palette, I use the tool to understand how those colors interact.

9) Provide Interpretation

If you have been doing this for awhile, you know that the numbers never speak for themselves. Your charts (even great ones) don’t either. If the purpose of your chart is to communicate a key message, be very clear about what that message is. Depending on how the chart will be delivered, there are numerous ways that one might provide interpretation such as in a comments area, in descriptive chart titles, in the body of an email or a follow up phone call. If your chart has a strategic purpose, it’s worth the extra few minutes it takes to ensure that your message is delivered effectively.

10) Be Consistent

When you have multiple charts within a report or the same chart across similar reports, consistency in the size of your charts and the colors you use, will help your target audience(s) understand them.

• Use size to show importance and similarity. More important metrics/messages should be in bigger charts and metric/messages that are similar should be the same size.
• Items that are the same should be the same color. Don’t change your color palette from chart to chart to make your reports more colorful. Be consistent with the colors that you choose. For example, if you have two charts comparing 2006 to 2007, make sure that 2007 is the same color in both charts - even if the chart types are different.

In Part 1 of “10 Tips for Creating Great Charts,” I mentioned that creating great charts is a process of making strategic, deliberate decisions. I would also add that in order to improve the overall quality of your charts, breaking bad habits is equally as important as implementing best practices.

On a final note, I would like remind our readers that simply understanding the tips for creating great charts is not enough. As true with all best practices, to be effective you must take the appropriate actions to ensure they are implemented as part of your chart creation process. By leveraging templates and macros, you can create a more efficient and streamlined process that is easier for the user to follow. This will improve your organization’s chances for being successful at creating great charts over the long term.

For more information please call 877-427-2900 or email info@stratigent.com.