Lately I’ve been feeling let down by summary statistics: the min and max, mean and median, quartiles and standard deviation… They do their job well enough. Summary statistics tell a summary. An aggregate story, bringing all the messy scores together into some sort of cohesion. We…
I’ve been in love with diverging stacked bar charts since I saw Joe Mako’s submission to Cole Nussbaumer’s dataviz challenge last December. Joe made this contest-winning chart. But in Tableau! The amazing but expensive software! Could I ever create one in Excel?! Yes! Luckily I’d…
Last week I shared strategies for improving any chart’s colors. One of the examples was a diverging stacked bar chart: I love stacked bar charts because they’re pretty versatile, and because they’re a great chart for lots of evaluation and survey data. In my example,…
Two weeks ago, I challenged readers to re-create the “after” version of a small multiples bar chart. You can read the full post here. Congratulations to the 6 contestants! Click on the contestant’s name to see their chart. James Coyle Sara Vaca Elisa Avila Angie…
In the third dataviz challenge, we started talking about making several comparisons at once. For example, when the Innovation Network team and I surveyed nonprofits in the State of Evaluation 2012 research, we found differences between small, medium, and large nonprofits’ evaluation practices and capacity….
Note from Ann: Last week I shared a dataviz how-to guide. Paul Denninger has a great alternative solution to share! He uses hidden bars, also known in the Excel community as floating bars or white bars, to build “two” charts in one. Enjoy! Getting excel…
Two weeks ago, I challenged readers to re-create the “after” version of a side by side bar chart. You can read the full post here. Congratulations to the 9 contestants! Click on the contestant’s name to see their chart. Regan Grandy Sara Vaca Alex Kadis…
Thanks to everyone who participated in the first and second dataviz challenges! I hope these challenges give you a chance to practice and build upon your Excel and visualization skills. Last time, we made a streamlined version of the basic bar chart by adjusting Excel’s…
Two weeks ago, I challenged readers to re-create the “after” version of a basic bar chart. You can read the full post here. Congratulations to the 9 winners: Molly Hamm, David Napoli, Susan Kistler, Jon Schwabish, Ethan, Mike, Sara Vaca, Samantha Grant, and Kevin Gilds! You’ve…
The first dataviz challenge was a hit! A few of you wanted to participate but weren’t ready to jump into a challenge that required so much Excel elbow grease. So, this second challenge is geared towards beginners like you. Once I build your foundational skills,…