Data Visualization Slides
Data Visualization Slides
Simple, intuitive
custom chart design
Monthly Sales
EXAMPLES:
• Total sales by product type
• Population by country
• Revenue by department, by quarter
PRO TIPS:
EXAMPLES:
• Frequency of test scores among students
• Distribution of population by age group
• Distribution of heights or weights
PRO TIPS:
Use Pareto Charts to show the cumulative impact of each bin, ordered by significance
LINE CHARTS
EXAMPLES:
• Stock price by hour
• Average temperature by month
• Profit by quarter
PRO TIPS:
Combine line & column charts to trend two variables on different scales
AREA CHARTS
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
EXAMPLES:
• Percentage of budget spent by department
• Proportion of internet users by age range
• Breakdown of site traffic by source
PRO TIPS:
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
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
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 cell formulas and form controls to create a dynamic, animated bubble chart
BOX & WHISKER CHARTS
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
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
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
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
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
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
EXAMPLES:
• Facebook’s daily stock performance in 2015
• High, low, and closing prices for Google in Q1
• Relative performance across multiple stocks
PRO TIPS:
Switch from a date to a text axis to eliminate gaps when markets are closed
HEAT MAPS
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
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
RESOURCES & NEXT STEPS
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