Comments on: Radar-XY Combination Chart

By: Jon Peltier

Jon Peltier — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 17:52:29 +0000

Gauge charts and pie charts (and probably others) suffer from being too common. People are so familiar with them, that they don’t realize the charts show nothing. Marketing tells people that it’s cool to use these displays, and people think it’s useful to use them.

By: Colin Banfield

Colin Banfield — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 15:38:59 +0000

Jon, I remember your gauge chart quite well..er…I think I have the stuff filed away in a folder somewhere ;) So many dashboard companies use these speedometer things that I think that ordinary folks believe it’s uncool not to have them (marketing can be a powerful influence sometimes). I must confess that I too was taken in initially. When one thinks of the effort it takes to emulate gauges and produce other not-so-useful charts in Excel though, it’s not even a question of diminishing returns, since the result isn’t superior to better alternatives that take less time and effort to create.

I just had a shuddering thought. Speedometers could show up in the next version of Excel!

By: Jon Peltier

Jon Peltier — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 14:55:13 +0000

Colin – Good point. For many years I had on my site a tutorial showing how to make gauge-type charts in Excel. I think I did it for laughs, to show it could be done.

The tutorial received a lot of traffic, and I received many emails, mostly from people who couldn’t figure out the math behind it. I would tell them the gauge is not a very effective chart, and they wanted to use it anyway. Finally I took the tutorial down, and replaced it with a statement explaining why it was no longer available, and why it was an ineffective means of display.

Now I receive the occasional request to send the archived page to somebody, “just this once, I promise not to abuse it”. I politely decline. To use a gauge chart is to abuse a gauge chart.

By: Colin Banfield

Colin Banfield — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 14:43:07 +0000

Jon, understood. Perhaps you should put a disclaimer at the top of these anti-Tufte/Few posts :) The nice thing about the simple line chart is that you can clearly see traffic trend over the day, which isn’t obvious with the radar chart. By the way, I’m all for novelty, but only when the novelty serves a purpose better than or as an equal alternative to something else. In this regard, sparklines, bullet graphs and panel charts are examples of good novelties, but even these are variations of bread-and-butter charts. Another great novelty you’re recently blogged about is the Gapminder type animations.

In the end (except for marketing brochures), it’s all about (or should be about) presenting data in a manner that allows one to make informed decisions. I haven’t a clue what inferences could be made from the radar chart, far less the original bubble chart.

By: Jon Peltier

Jon Peltier — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 14:03:03 +0000

Colin - I somewhat agree. My first alternative, you may recall (Rock Around The Clock), was a boring old line chart, and when I examine similar data myself, that's what I use. But people like novelty, and when Jorge raised the stakes, I had to respond in kind. It's so difficult to be this competitive, and always right as well. As if.

By: Colin Banfield

Colin Banfield — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 13:52:36 +0000

Why folks think it necessary to invent these complicated and unreadable charts is something I’m yet to figure out. It’s as if somehow, the standard charts become too boring after a while. In my opinion, the best way to view this data is with a simple (yeah “boring”) line chart, period.

By: Rock Around The Clock » PTS Blog

Rock Around The Clock » PTS Blog — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 12:41:57 +0000

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