We’ve been struggling with how to make this table reader friendly for the non-data literate.  Please help!  This table is included in a larger report that will be distributed to community agencies with varying levels of data literacy. Please provide help using Excel—we don’t have access to other software programs (unless they are free!).

Data are available here.

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I am aiming to compare two categories (both in percentage), one of which can and does have negative values for particular locations, and then grouped into regions. There is also a 75% threshold that I would like to show – the 75% is relevant only for the blue category.

What I hope to show is the relationship between the blue (% variance to budget) and orange (% variance FTEs) categories. For example, when the % variance to budget values exceed the 75% threshold–which is good–is that because the %FTEs are positive percentages (i.e., they used more staff than budgeted)? Or does the % variance to budget exceed 75% (again, the good result) when fewer staff are budgeted (negative % FTE)? While the current graph has the two bars side by side is there a better way to show the relationship? Any other general observations would also be appreciated as I don’t know how to avoid having some location labels overlapping the negative bars.

The Excel file is available here.

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The visualization is a clustered bar chart that shows the correlation between the percent change in payroll and performance between 2002 and 2012. There are two bars on the y-axis: the thick light blue one represents the percent change in payroll between 2002 and 2012, and the thin dark bar represents the change in percent wins between 2002 and 2012. The grey and red bars are for negative values

In an iteration to the graph, I rearranged the bars following the winning percentage in the overall League. (Data are here.)

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I’m trying to figure out how to create “nice” panel charts in excel, where I’m currently attempting to do so in Stata. (See for example Figure 2.) I can easily do the individual excel chart, but my investigation online into making this a 2X2 set seems to involve using pivot tables, and even then I’m not quite convinced it will work out as I want it to. I wanted to reach out in the event that this is something you or others have done before – Excel trend figures side by side for comparison purposes…also known to some as panel charts. This allows the reader to view trend lines across different groupings over the same scale to make helpful comparisons.

The data are available here.

Here is the Excel file Ira suggested.

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Thanks,
Jon

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I am looking for some feedback on a rather basic visualization. I wish to display a parts-to-whole relationship over time. I know stacked bars or areas do not work because of the jiggered baselines, so what are the alternatives? I am doing the visualization in Excel, but I think the general discussion of what would be good practice in this case would be interesting, no matter what tool you use.

The Excel workbook contains a a sample dataset and my three takes on a solution. I have already dismissed Solution A, but could Solutions B or C be useful? What other alternatives might there be?

Thanks for any feedback/thoughts!

PS: I know you’re not supposed to connect categorical data like in solution C, but I think the line does give a sense of the distribution of the categories that is otherwise is missing…

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I published this paper long ago on trends in obesity over people’s lives. The images from that paper can be found in this PPT file (the data is embedded in the charts).

I am trying to show the changes in obesity over time for birth cohorts, but I have been told that these graphs are really hard to understand. I am looking for feedback from others about how to more effectively communicate these trends. In this iteration, I will be creating an interactive version of the graphs, but am first looking for help on improving how the data are graphically displayed.

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The data show the amount of time spent on the court and a measure of impact for 12 basketball players. The Impact variable is the sum of points scored for the team minus the points scored against the team while that player was on the court. An overall positive impact means the team scored more points ‘for’ than ‘against’ while that player was on the court. One limitation of Impact is that it doesn’t take into consideration the other players on the court at the same time.

The question is: Which players are most effective?

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Attached is the spreadsheet I’m working on as well as quick mock-up in Paint of what I’d like the graph to look like.

On the spreadsheet, column B represents each individual series I would like. As in, each cell in column B would be its own column of data on the chart, with two lines, one representing the trend of subscription ranking and one representing the trend of view ranking. One line will be columns C-D, and another separate line will be columns E-F.

As a note, I’ve made the rankings negative so that a jump to a better ranking is indicated by a line with a positive slope in the chart.

I’m hoping this is possible to do with excel, but so far all my efforts have been thwarted. I’m willing to use an app or other software for this, provided it doesn’t require programming skills.

Help!

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