Charting

Excel Funnel Charts

Funnel charts don’t make sense. But if theres one thing we can all agree on then its that everyone else is stupid, well maybe not stupid, but not as smart as me and you, thats for sure ;-))).

So people want funnel charts, give them their cakeJon (Peltier) and Chandoo have some examples. Here are mine which are a little diffrent.

Method 1, is 2 stacked bar charts. The first charts picks up the data ratio, and the second shapes the funnel. I’ll not explian how to do it, you just have to nest one chart ontop of the other and set up the section width etc, dissect the chart in the example file if you want to find out more.

The good thing about this method is that it will scale well, the down side is you need a load of data points to shape the funnel (I’ve used 100, but you can use more if you like – smoother).

The next method is simpler/easyier to do, its the same stacked bar chart for the data, but this time with a XY scatter plot on top to which a couple of custom shapes have been added as markers. This has the advanatge of being relativly simple, and you can go to town on the shapes if you wanted. The down side is it does not scale well at all.

So if you’re looking for a 1/2 decent funnel chart (even though you know better) these might help. Enjoy!

Download the M.I.E Funnel Charts example.

Advances in Apples’ Charting

Today I was reading Apples Supplier Responsibility and saw this masterpiece of visual lies!

The caption underneath the figure says

“As of December 2009, Apple has audited 190 facilities located in  China, the Czech Republic,….”

Maybe suggesting they’re trying to show the combined total, with a yearly split? Whatever the intention was, the chart is poor, here’s what it might have looked like (not even stacked)

Which, I think, does show a slightly different story to the first chart. I’m not sure why the colours are different either, and I can live with out the roundness, here’s what I would have done….(I would even of gone back and added the “s”!)

So there you go, even the mighty Apple get it wrong sometimes… even if it is deliberately on purpose ;-).

Quickie: Colour Style of Bar Chart Bars

Just a quick one.

I notice that I often apply a fade effect to the bars of my bar charts, to me it looks a bit nicer.

With fade…

Without fade…

Its not too important, I think the options are:

1. Fade is best

2. Solid is best

3. Ross, you wasting my dam time, you’re a moron!

What do you think?

Sparklines News…

Following the recent excitement around Sparklines, it would have been easy to miss a little update to the excellent Sparklines for Excel add in.

Fabrice has updated the way Paretos can be handled, and the result look great, why not take a look for yourself here:

3 Charts from Ubuntu

I’ve just upgraded to the latest and greatest Ubuntu release, and I thought I’d take a look at what the various spread sheets install with it can do. I’ve got 3 on my system;  KSpread, oOO, and Gnumeric , although I think I may have installed Gnumeric myself. Any way here are some screen shots!

First up, Kspread, wow does this suck! It’s almost impossible to format the chart!

Screenshot-KSpread

Next, Gnumeric, which was much better, but still rubbish if I’m honest (I’m actually a big fan of Gnumeric, I think it has some really useful features).

Screenshot-gnumeric chart

And finally, oOO, easily the best of the bunch, and the only one you could even mention in the same breath as Office, but it’s still absolutely MILES behind!

Screenshot-Untitled 1 - OpenOffice.org Calc

So there you go, if you want to do charting stay well clear of open source spread sheets! Or have I been unfair, I’m not a skilled user of these products, am I showing that in this analysis?

Also if you know of any killer graphic (charting) apps, let us know by posting a comment. And I dont mean Tableau, or map grinder or we are human (or what ever it’s called), actual charts, that my boss stands an chance of understanding!