11/13/2014

#datanerds: Six Steps to Great Graphs and Charts | Beths Blog

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#datanerds: Six Steps to

Great Graphs and Charts

Hi, I'm Beth. Welcome!

DATA, MEASUREMENT

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Source: Gemma Correll I Love Charts

Note from Beth: I just knew that I was going to

start obsessing about charts and graphs after my
Excel spreadsheet obsessions started. I thought if I
set up a tumblr blog curating great nonprofit
spreadsheets, but the next logical step is create
visualizations of your data. What better way than
in Excel.

I got into a wonderful conversation with

Stephanie Evergreen, another nonprofit datanerd

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Beth Kanter

who loves spreadsheets who offered to write up this

guest post about how to create the perfect graph.
Six Steps to Great Graphs By Stephanie Evergreen

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Low budget? No programming skills? Me, too! Great data

visualizations dont necessarily require an expensive software

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package or a programmer on staff. Here is how you can work

with what you already own, Excel, to increase the impact of
your data visualizations. Lets start with one basic dataset a
count of the number of followers, advocates, and donors for a
non-profit over the last 6 years and rock the graph so it is
clear and compelling.
Step 1: Which Chart is Best?
Excel provides all sorts of default chart types to choose from,
but the truth is, keep it as simple as possible. If your data adds
http://www.bethkanter.org/datanerd-charts/

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#datanerds: Six Steps to Great Graphs and Charts | Beths Blog

up to 100%, you might choose a pie chart. Its difficult to

interpret area, so if you use a pie, restrict the number of
wedges to 4 or fewer. People are better at judging length, so
bar charts are a decent option also useful for comparisons.
People are even better at judging points on a line, but box
plots arent yet a default option in Word (heres a tutorial on
how to force one out of Excel, though
Since were working with the defaults, here is how our social
media data looks as a bar graph.

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The bar graph is okay, but when trying to look at change over
time, line graphs are a more appropriate chart type.

Ah, so much better! Now the trends are much easier to see at
a glance. The choice in chart type should be driven by the
relationships in the data we want to visualize. For more help,
check out my favorite chart chooser tool.
Step 2: Use Color to Emphasize
Excels default colors are so equally dark that it can be difficult
to tell the graphs main point, without some serious cognitive
effort. Changing the color can help bring attention where we
want it. Of course, that means we have to know where we
want it. So in this case, Im suggesting we pay attention to the
advocates, who used to be followers, and some of whom will
become donors. Im going to change the line color for
advocates to green, my action color, and change the others to
a shade of gray.

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#datanerds: Six Steps to Great Graphs and Charts | Beths Blog

Your action color will likely be something from your brand. Use
a color-picking tool to find out the exact color and navigate to
the custom color area in Excel to match your shade.
Step 3: Delete What You Dont Need
Little things in this chart still make it feel cluttered and distract
from the data. Most of the time, we can do without the tick
marks along each axis. Just right-click on each axis, and in the
format area, change the tick mark option to None.

We can also lighten up the gridlines. They support estimation

of the data values, but the default is so dark it can compete
with the actual data lines. Right-click on them and change their
color to a light gray. If you are going to put the number labels
on your data lines, delete the gridlines altogether. Just a few
tweaks there cleans up the data visualization.
Step 4: Directly Label
Our brains make better sense of the data when we replace the
legend with direct line labels. Just click on the legend and hit
your delete key. It will feel good.

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#datanerds: Six Steps to Great Graphs and Charts | Beths Blog

Then right-click on each line and select Add Data Labels. This
will give you numbers. So right-click again for select Format
Data Labels. Uncheck Values and check Series. Now each data
point will have its appropriate label, like Advocates. But you
only need the label at the end of the line, so click on the others
and hit that happy delete key again. This way, interpretation
of which line stands for what is very obvious.
Step 5: Save as a Template
Whew sounds like a lot of work, right? Make this process
easier in the future by saving the chart as a template. Look in
the chart types area of Excel and youll see a space to save
what you have made up to this point. Name it something youll
remember. Then the next time you need to make a three-line
graph, click on your customized template and BAM instant
great graph.
Step 6: Annotate
Lets get back to the original reason we visualize data were
looking for a pattern. We graph our social media impacts
because we need to see how launching new platforms has
influenced our clients. So now that we have taken lots of things
out of the graph, lets add back in some thoughtful annotation
to help make the patterns clear.

Several pieces were added: I inserted icons along the timeline

to illustrate when the nonprofit launched each social media
platform. Based on that, we can see a series of changes in the
data. After each launch, followers increase, and after a lag the
advocates and eventually the donors increase as well. Lets
point out that pattern using the title. I left-justified the title and
changed the text from something generic to a clear take-away
point. No reader can mistake the message. I added a subtitle
to further elaborate.
You can use Excel to do more than create awesome line
graphs. Are you inserting this graph into a slideshow for your
Board? Try the slow reveal. Once you have mastered clean
graph redesign, pull several together into a 1-page dashboard,
like my annual report. Or entice your annual meeting invitees
http://www.bethkanter.org/datanerd-charts/

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#datanerds: Six Steps to Great Graphs and Charts | Beths Blog

with scratch-off graphs.

Six steps help us tweak Excels defaults into rockstar data
visualizations that help us understand our work and better
communicate it to others.

Stephanie Evergreen blogs, tweets, and trains on how to make

awesome graphs, slides, and reports. Her forthcoming book,
Presenting Data Effectively, is coming soon, better early your
copy now!

8 Responses

#datanerds: Six Steps to Great Graphs and Char... says:

May 12, 2013 at 8:31 am
[...] Source: Gemma Correll I Love Charts Note from Beth: I just
knew that I was going to start obsessing about charts and graphs
after my Excel spreadsheet obsessions started. [...]
Fundraisingwoche vom 06.05.-12.05.2013 | sozialmarketing.de - wir
lieben Fundraising says:
May 13, 2013 at 9:02 am
[...] Blog: #datanerds: Six Steps to Great Graphs and Charts Donor
Dreams: Dear board volunteers I cant do this all by myself. Fired
Up: Make Your [...]
#datanerds: Six Steps to Great Graphs and Char... says:
May 13, 2013 at 9:53 am
[...] Note from Beth: I just knew that I was going to start obsessing
about charts and graphs after my Excel spreadsheet obsessions
started. I thought if I set up a tumblr blog curating great nonprofit
spreadsheets, but the next logical step is create visualizations of
your data. What better way than in Excel. I got into a wonderful
conversation with Stephanie Evergreen, another nonprofit datanerd
who loves spreadsheets who offered to write up this guest post
about how to create the perfect graph. Six Steps to Great Graphs
By Stephanie EvergreenLow budget? No programming skills? Me,
too! Great data visualizations dont necessarily require an expensive
software package or a programmer on staff. Here is how you can
work with what you already own, Excel, to increase the impact of
your data visualizations. Lets start with one basic dataset a count
of the number of followers, advocates, and donors for a non-profit
over the last 6 years and rock the graph so it is clear and
compelling. [...]
Regina Ford says:
May 15, 2013 at 12:12 pm

Ive been looking at putting together charts and graphs to

get through information at a higher rate with increased impact
and definitely picked up some tips. Thanks! Especially liked the
annotations and deleting what you dont need!
Kyle Burns says:
May 31, 2013 at 8:47 am

There are a lot of great free tools available to visualize your

data. Tableau offers a free public version, if you dont mind
sharing your data, and offers a variety of visualizations. We used
it to create all our charts on the website sfgovbar.weebly.com to
give the public the ability to interact with government data.
Tableau also gives you the HTML code to publish to your website.
Another free tool is offered from IBM called Cognos Insight.

http://www.bethkanter.org/datanerd-charts/

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#datanerds: Six Steps to Great Graphs and Charts | Beths Blog

Tierney Smith says:
June 5, 2013 at 9:17 am

Great post! There was a great webinar with a similar idea

but more in depth which I posted on our blog
(https://www.techsoupcanada.ca/en/community/blog/datavisualization-foundations) and I think this post does a nice job of
walking through the same principles in a shorter text format
which is super helpful, so thanks
Claire says:
June 6, 2013 at 5:24 am

Wicked helpful, Beth and Stephanie. Just what I need to

move my data capture into data use!
Beth says:
June 6, 2013 at 8:08 am

Tierney Smith: Wow, that is one awesome resource. Thanks

so much for sharing.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 United States License.

http://www.bethkanter.org/datanerd-charts/

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