MICROSOFT EXCEL:

EXCEL CHARTS:
VISUALIZATION SECRETS
Excel of Data Visualization
 KEY PRINCIPLES OF DATA VISUALIZATION

Strive for CLARITY & SIMPLICITY

• Maximize impact, minimize noise
• If it doesn’t add value or serve a purpose, get rid of it

Focus on creating a NARRATIVE

• Don’t just show data, tell a story
• Communicate key insights clearly, quickly and powerfully

Strike a balance between DESIGN & FUNCTION

• Selecting the right type of chart is critical
• Beautiful is good, functional is better, BOTH is ideal
 THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UGLY

THE GOOD Dynamic formatting helps

to strengthen the story

Simple, intuitive
custom chart design

Clean, simple visualization with animation over time

 THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UGLY

THE BAD Busy, no clear narrative

All design, no function

Monthly Sales

Misleading chart type

 THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UGLY

THE UGLY Misleading y-axis scale

Too many elements, distracting 3D design

Improper use of percentages

& inconsistent scaling
 THE 3 KEY QUESTIONS

1 What type of data are you working with?

• Integer, real, categorical, time-series, geo-spatial, etc.

2 What are you trying to communicate?

• Relationship, comparison, composition, distribution, trending, etc.

3 Who is the end user consuming this information?

• Analyst, CEO, client, intern, etc.
 BAR & COLUMN CHARTS

COMMONLY USED FOR:

• Comparing numerical data across categories

EXAMPLES:
• Total sales by product type
• Population by country
• Revenue by department, by quarter

PRO TIPS:
Use stacked or clustered bars/columns to group by subcategory or compare multiple metrics

Create custom formatting rules to color-code bars/columns based on their values

 HISTOGRAMS & PARETO CHARTS

COMMONLY USED FOR:

• Showing the distribution of a continuous data set

EXAMPLES:
• Frequency of test scores among students
• Distribution of population by age group
• Distribution of heights or weights

PRO TIPS:
Adjust the bin size to customize the grouping of values

Use Pareto Charts to show the cumulative impact of each bin, ordered by significance
 LINE CHARTS

COMMONLY USED FOR:

• Visualizing trends over time

EXAMPLES:
• Stock price by hour
• Average temperature by month
• Profit by quarter

PRO TIPS:
Use linear or polynomial trendlines to visualize patterns or forecast future periods

Combine line & column charts to trend two variables on different scales
 AREA CHARTS

COMMONLY USED FOR:

• Showing changes in data composition over time

EXAMPLES:
• Sales by department, by month
• % of total downloads by browser, by week
• Population by continent, by decade

PRO TIPS:
Keep the number of unique categories relatively low (<6) to maintain clarity

Use data validation and custom formatting to dynamically highlight specific data series
 PIE & DONUT CHARTS

COMMONLY USED FOR:

• Comparing proportions totaling 100%

EXAMPLES:
• Percentage of budget spent by department
• Proportion of internet users by age range
• Breakdown of site traffic by source

PRO TIPS:
Keep the number of slices small (<6) to maximize readability

Use a donut chart to visualize more than one series at once, or use transparent
segments to create a custom “race track” visualization
 SCATTER PLOTS

COMMONLY USED FOR:

• Exploring correlations or relationships between series

EXAMPLES:
• Number of home runs and salary by player
• Ice cream sales and average temperature by day
• Hours of television watched by age

PRO TIPS:
Add a trendline or line of best fit to quantify the correlation between variables

Remember that correlation does not imply causation

 BUBBLE CHARTS

COMMONLY USED FOR:

• Adding a third dimension (size) to a scatter plot format

EXAMPLES:
• Product sales (X), Revenue (Y), and Market Share (size)
by Company
• Income per Capita (X), Life Expectancy (Y) and
Population (size) by Country

PRO TIPS:
Use color as a fourth dimension to differentiate between categories

Use cell formulas and form controls to create a dynamic, animated bubble chart
 BOX & WHISKER CHARTS

COMMONLY USED FOR:

• Visualizing statistical characteristics across data series

EXAMPLES:
• Comparing historical annual rainfall across cities
• Analyzing distributions of values and identifying outliers
• Comparing mean and median height/weight by country

PRO TIPS:
By default, quartiles are calculated by excluding the median; this calculation can be adjusted to
include the median, but may significantly change the result (particularly for smaller data samples)
 TREE MAPS & SUNBURST CHARTS

COMMONLY USED FOR:

• Visualizing hierarchical data with natural groups/sub-groups

EXAMPLES:
• Revenue by Book Title, Sub-Genre, and Genre
• Number of Employees by Department and Office
• Population by City, State, and Region

PRO TIPS:
Use Tree Maps when you are only visualizing 1 or 2 hierarchical levels (i.e. topic & sub-topic) or when
relative sizes are important, and Sunburst charts to visualize the depth of multiple hierarchical levels
Make sure your raw source data is grouped and sorted before creating hierarchical charts
 WATERFALL CHARTS

COMMONLY USED FOR:

• Showing the net value after a series of
positive and negative contributions

EXAMPLES:
• Corporate balance sheet analysis
• Personal income and spending

PRO TIPS:
Use sub-totals to create “checkpoints” and split up certain types of gains/losses (i.e. Gross Revenue -
Cost of Goods Sold = Gross Profit, Gross Profit - Operating Expenses = Operating Income, etc.)
 FUNNEL CHARTS

COMMONLY USED FOR:

• Showing progress through the stages of a funnel

EXAMPLES:
• Volume of views, clicks, and sales on an ecomm site
• Number of runners who reach each checkpoint in a
marathon (5k, 10k, half, etc.)

PRO TIPS:

Use “percent of total” calculations to show the % of users (rather than #) at each funnel stage

Customize colors to emphasize progression towards an end goal

 RADAR CHARTS

COMMONLY USED FOR:

• Plotting three or more quantitative variables on a
two-dimensional chart, relative to a central point

EXAMPLES:
• Comparing test scores across multiple subjects
• Sales of different types of vegetables, by month
• Visualizing personality test results across subjects

PRO TIPS:
Normalize each metric to the same scale (i.e. 0-1, 1-10, 1-100) to improve readability and create
more intuitive comparisons across data series

Limit the number of categories or data series to minimize noise and maximize impact
 SURFACE & CONTOUR CHARTS

COMMONLY USED FOR:

• Plotting data in three dimensions to find
optimum combinations of values

EXAMPLES:
• Accident rates by hour of day and day of week
• Elevation by latitude and longitude
• Cookie deliciousness by oven temp and baking time

PRO TIPS:

Don’t use surface charts if a simple heat map will tell the same story

Avoid using wireframe chart types when possible, as they can be difficult to interpret
 STOCK CHARTS

COMMONLY USED FOR:

• Visualizing stock market data, including
volume, high, low, open, and closing prices

EXAMPLES:
• Facebook’s daily stock performance in 2015
• High, low, and closing prices for Google in Q1
• Relative performance across multiple stocks

PRO TIPS:
Manually set axis minimum/maximum values to enhance readability

Switch from a date to a text axis to eliminate gaps when markets are closed
 HEAT MAPS

COMMONLY USED FOR:

• Visualizing trends or relationships using color scales

EXAMPLES:
• Accident rates by time of day and day of week
• Average temperature by city, by month
• Average sentiment by hashtag

PRO TIPS:
Use intuitive color scales (i.e. red to green) and apply custom formatting to hide cell values (;;;)

Use data validation and cell formulas to create dynamic heat maps based on user-entered values
 GEOSPATIAL/CHOROPLETH MAP

COMMONLY USED FOR:

• Visualizing location-based data

EXAMPLES:
• Frequency of accidents by street address
• Unemployment rate by country
• Average rainfall by state

PRO TIPS:
Use Excel’s Power Map plug-in to create geo-spatial visualizations and animate changes over time

Utilize attributes like color and size to visualize multiple attributes at once
 Gurudutt Sharma
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Reporting, so you don't have to!”

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