New Feature: The Chart Doctor
by Jon Peltier
Peltier Technical Services, Inc., Copyright © 2009.
Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.
Chandoo of Pointy Haired Dilbert fame and I are starting a regular series of posts, entitled The Chart Doctor. We will start with charts that need help, either generated by our readers, or encountered by our readers on the internet or during their business activities. We’ll dissect the charts, and try to apply good visualization practices while displaying what the author thinks should be displayed.
At first we’ll concentrate on standalone charts, because reconstruction of a whole dashboard could take days.
Chandoo will lead one analysis, and I will lead the next. We’ll comment on each other’s approach, and if history is any indication,we’ll get lots of comments from you smart readers. I expect this series to generate some good discussions. So submit your best, or worst, charting examples to Jon or Chandoo, and join the fun.
Make an appointment with The Chart Doctor using this Google Form.
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Posted: Friday, June 12th, 2009 under The Chart Doctor.
Comments: 4
Comments
Comment from DMurphy
Time: Friday, June 12, 2009, 8:07 am
Great idea!
If you are looking for an early contender, here’s one which came in to my wife from her Pension company this week showing (or at least attempting to show) the make-up of her investments. http://www.box.net/shared/goynhfo7zb
There is a scan of the company charts and an Excel sheet with the data to save you having to type it up again. For my tuppence worth (read 2-cents in the US), my first thoughts were:
The primary Asset Category is not defined in the chart – this would be of key importance to me – to see the split of Bonds to Equities to Other – the chart loses this entirely
The TopTen chart just should not be there – it adds nothing to the data – in fact, it confuses the reader.
I look forward to seeing your, Chandoo’s and your readers comments – perhaps we canstart shaming these “professionals” into providing meaningful information.
Comment from Jon Peltier
Time: Friday, June 12, 2009, 9:29 am
David -
Thanks, that’s an appropriately bad chart. We’ll get right on it.
Comment from Thom Mitchell
Time: Friday, June 12, 2009, 9:30 am
Happy five-oh, Jon! I hope it’s a good one with family all ’round!
Pingback from The Original Chart Doctor « Charts & Graphs
Time: Monday, June 15, 2009, 10:11 am
[...] 6/12/09, 21 months after I introduced Excel Chart Doctor, Chandoo and Jon Peltier announce that they are adding a Chart Doctor feature to their [...]
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