5.1 Charts that say something

What you'll be able to do

Make a chart that a stranger reads correctly in five seconds. The type chosen from the question, everything decorative deleted, and the axis honest.

Before you start

Download the dashboard starter workbook. Its data sheets feed this whole module.

The work

1. Same either way: choose the chart type from the question, not from the gallery. To compare categories, use a bar chart with horizontal bars, because labels read best beside them. To show change over time, use a line. For parts of one whole, a bar of shares beats a pie as soon as there are more than three slices. For the relationship between two measures, use a scatter. Say the question aloud first, and the type follows.
2. Same either way: make the quick chart, then improve it. Select the data and press Alt+F1 for a chart on the same sheet. F11 makes one on its own sheet. What you get is a draft, not something to hand over.
3. Same either way: now delete things, which is the skill that separates charts people read from charts people skip. Gridlines go. The legend goes when there is only one line of data. Axis clutter goes, and so does every decimal place the reader cannot use. Click each element and press Delete. Two things must survive: the shape of the data, and the one label that names it. This is the PowerPoint charts rule, applied at your own desk too.
4. Same either way: put the finding in the title. Click the title and type the sentence the chart proves: "South zone doubled after March", not "Sales by zone". Readers remember sentences, not bars.
5. No documented keyboard shortcut for this — use the menu: two sets of numbers may use different scales, such as units and rupees. Right-click the second series → Format Data Series → Secondary Axis. Insert → Combo Chart does the same job. Use it rarely and label it clearly, because two axes invite misreading. Name both, or the chart is a trap.
6. Same either way: learn the cut-axis trick so that you never use it. Starting the value axis at 90 instead of 0 makes a difference of two per cent look enormous. Bar charts start at zero, always, because the length of a bar is what carries the meaning, and a cut axis makes those lengths lie. A line chart may zoom in when the level is not the point, and it should say so on the axis. Check the axis on every chart you inherit, because that is where most chart lies live.

Try it

From the starter workbook's data, make one bar chart answering a comparison and one line chart answering a trend. Strip each to the shape and one label, title it with its finding, and keep the axis honest. Then take the workbook's deliberately bad chart and repair it: type, deletions, title, axis.

Check yourself