EXCEL WORKSHOP I
InfoGraphic Groups
Graphs Maps Diagrams Tables
Quantitati ve data over time or at a point in time Area, Bar, Box or Candlestick, Column, Line, or Radar Contour, Choropleth or Demographi c, Cartogram, or Weather General and Quantitative /Frequency Mixed Quantitati ve and non-Quantitati ve Bar, Histogram, and Quantile Block, Dot Density, Profile, and Weather Non-Quantitati ve Network, Road, and Thematic Block, Network or Flow, and Timelines Calendar, Pictorial, and Reference
Discrete Data
Discrete data can be categorized in groups or by
a reference scale
Ex1 – Data on occupations fall into job titles, such as
lawyers, doctors, plumbers, etc.
Ex2 – Data from survey responses fall in to qualitative
answers, such as “Yes or No”, “Up, Down, or Stay the
Same”, “Male or Female”, “Strongly Agree, Agree,
Neutral, Disagree, or Strongly Disagree”, etc.
Ex3 – Some data are sequential, such as “Did not
Ordered or Sequential
Categories
It may be better to show these data in a
stacked graph as those at the upper education levels have
Column Graphs
Note the use of color to
show the different
temperatures, but
probably should have
made 71° F and 68° F
more to a blue or
blue-green color to separate
it from the others.
Also, note that the
ordering of the columns
does not follow the
pattern of degrees or
sales. Instead it
appears to follow the
weekend sequence, but
it’s a strange choice
Remember These Column Graphs
Pie Chart
We use Pie Charts to show proportions
Comparison Pies
Very effective in showing what part of the pie has changed significantly between the two periods, but the background color is quite dominant and interferes with the “corn &
Continuous Data
Continuous data do not naturally fall into groups,
but are values on the real line (i.e., numbers)
Ex1 – Data on personal income
Ex2 – Data of new home prices or number of housing
starts
Ex3 – Data on age, blood pressure, or miles driven in
a week
Some data are nearly discrete, such as number of
children in a household or number of traffic tickets
received in a year by an individual. This means
that there is a limited range of values
Area and Line Charts are often used for continuous
Area Chart
In a stacked area chart, the amounts for each variable are added to those of the previous
variable to form the graph. The largest values should be on the bottom. This graph
shows relative accident counts by mode of
Area Chart of Energy
Consumption
Mixing the stacks by size can sometimes help show the small users, but here it
A Stack Bar Chart Has Area
Effects
A presentation from the
New York Times
Visualization Lab. This image was created by Peter Couvares using
data from the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life.
Carrie
d
Controversial NYT Movie
Stack
At Malofiej, one of the major awards ceremonies for infographics in
Line Chart with Background Visual Cue
Multiple Line Charts
Recall that inviting and sophisticate d
presentatio ns are often found in
simple
graphs that use
analogous colors and a contrast
Sophisticated Line Chart
with Text
Chart shows the stock price and events affecting the company. Note how the graphic artist dealt with a trading halt by
Multiple Line Charts – Pretty
Busy
Sometimes a graphic can try to do too much and show data that
may not match well— at least visually—to the core story. Here the core story is the
“housing
announcement” that “sales of previously owned homes fell 27% in July.” However, it is a real stretch to
connect oil prices, the Dow Jones index and U.S. Treasury yield to this one event by
Advanced Timeline
Technique
This graphic shows an event timeline for a tennis match. The set scores are prominent in the left panel, then the “momentum” line is shown in the middle panel, and the more detailed data appear in the last panel.
Combination Charts
Sources of Visualization
Tools
Beta Version of Easel.ly
www.easel.ly
Here's a short video of how it works:
http://vimeo.com/37781587
Google programs
Sheets
Bubble My Page
Infocaptor.com offers a “bubble my
page” tool so that you can see the
relative frequency of words on a web
page
http://www.infocaptor.com/bubble-my-page
Some sites will that are https:// will block
Excel for the Beach Ball
Open the Beach Ball folder from the
class website
Open a browser and go to
google.com/images
Type Beach ball and search for these
images
Save a beachball.jpg to your student
Workshop Folder – Beach
Ball
The beach ball problem has a number of sticky
issues. Among them are making the
beach ball
transparent, altering the labels on the
Workshop Folder – Line Graphs
Line graphs offer similar challenges to those presented by the beach ball problem.Source for Line Graph
NBER dating Committee:
http://www.nber.org/cycles.html
BLS employment data:
Remember - Making Effective Images
Research the subject
Avoid bias and conflicts – document sources
Be afraid of ambiguity – multiple interpretations
Identify your information or message
Collect supporting data – facts and numbers
Decide on measurement units (counts, percentage,
etc.)
Develop your image – chart type, infographic, etc.