Sometimes — as when GapMinder.org excels — animation is very useful because we’ve run out of spatial dimensions to visualize our data, and we need time to serve as an extra dimension for grasping the effect of time.

Other times — using animation such as this ballistics demo provides — the animation might serve as a cute icebreaker: an orienting introduction that helps draw the audience into considering more complex charts with higher data density.

Thank you for teaching such methods. I’m trying to find situations where such Excel animations could be useful.