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The solution the the population growth problem.
Example Excel Spreadsheet
Articles on Bad Charts
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So here we are looking at our spreadsheet
with country population data,
0:00
and it's pretty well organized.
0:04
I'm gonna start off by creating
a line chart that includes
0:07
all of the countries in it.
0:10
I'm going to hold down SHIFT + CTRL, and
select all the data I want to chart.
0:12
I'm going to use my keyboard shortcuts,
ALT, N for insert and
0:18
N again for a 2-D line chart.
0:23
And you can see that part of
the chart is cut off, and
0:28
that's because we're all
the way over here at column BG.
0:30
So I wanna get back over here, and
we can see now the full chart.
0:34
I wanna go ahead and
move this to a new sheet.
0:38
And I'm gonna call that sheet LineChart.
0:44
Okay, we can see pretty clearly
some things from this chart.
0:48
First of all, we can see that China
is always the largest country.
0:53
And India is the second largest,
and has actually caught up quite
0:56
a lot to China in terms of population
size by the very end of this time frame.
1:01
So the furthest data points
we have out are 2015.
1:05
And there used to be a lot bigger of a gap
between the population sizes of China and
1:09
India in 1950 than there are now in 2015.
1:15
We also can observe that the US
has consistently been the third
1:19
largest country, and
Brazil is growing quite a lot as well.
1:23
Let's take a look at what this chart
becomes when we make it a stacked
1:29
area chart.
1:34
So I'm gonna change the chart type and
do Stacked Area.
1:35
So we can see the relative size
of the different countries and
1:40
how they stack up to create the total
population for these different countries.
1:44
But I like the line chart better, it was
more clear to see the comparison and
1:49
size of the different countries.
1:53
But maybe that's an opinion
that you don't share.
1:55
Nevertheless, I'm going to change
these back to line charts.
1:58
I think another view of
this data that would be
2:02
interesting to see is
the 100% stacked area chart.
2:05
So because we wanna make two different
charts, I wanna go back here and
2:09
select all the data again.
2:13
Do Alt, N, And
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100 % Stacked Area.
2:22
Let's move this to its own sheet as well.
2:31
And let's call it 100%.
2:37
So this is also interesting because,
in the other charts we looked at earlier,
2:42
we saw how big each country was, and
how their populations changed over time.
2:46
Let's look at the line chart again,
so you can see the relative size and
2:50
how those populations
have grown over time.
2:55
With the 100%,
we can see how the share of each country's
2:59
population contributes
to the whole over time.
3:02
By showing line charts, we can show how
populations have evolved over time and
3:05
clearly compare them with each other.
3:09
Adding the 100% stacked area as
the second chart shows us that even
3:12
though China has had
the largest population and
3:16
it's continued to grow in the line charts,
you can see that.
3:19
When we look at the 100%, we can see that
China's percent of total population for
3:25
this group of countries has remained
fairly constant, around 39 to 40%.
3:30
India is the country that has
gained the most population share.
3:35
There are lots of data points
in each of these series.
3:40
You could simplify things a bit by making
the chart only show every 5 years instead
3:43
of every year from 1950 to 2015.
3:48
That's just an option to make the chart
slightly less data heavy, but
3:50
still communicate the large
themes of what's occurred
3:55
over the time frame we're looking at.
3:58
You can go ahead and try that yourself for
some extra practice.
4:01
How you visualize your data will
vary on a case by case basis.
4:04
You are going to have to exercise
your own judgement regularly.
4:09
It's always helpful to ask the question,
what's gonna tell the story most clearly?
4:13
What visualization communicates
the most information most clearly?
4:19
In the teacher's notes, I shared some
links to articles with examples of
4:24
bad charts for some comedic relief and
as a guide for what not to do.
4:28
Well, we've arrived at the end of our
Data Visualization in Excel course.
4:35
Knowing how to visualize data is
a great skill to have, and I'm so
4:40
grateful to be able to teach
you the fundamentals of it.
4:44
Remember, as with many things,
practice makes perfect.
4:47
So take advantage of every
chance you have to improve.
4:52
Day-to-day work can become an opportunity
to sharpen your data visualization skills.
4:56
You just have to remember to approach
things with the I'm always learning
5:01
mentality.
5:05
Have fun telling stories with your data.
5:07
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