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Should we use a column or a bar chart? Learn when and why in this video.
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Okay, here we are looking
at our spreadsheet.
0:00
The Seven Dwarfs are all
pretty good golfers.
0:02
Anyhow, we see that we
have both negative and
0:06
positive values in our
data set in column B.
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Let's start off with a bar chart and
see how it looks.
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So I'm gonna select my data, Alt+N+C for
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the column bar chart shortcuts.
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And I'm gonna to do the Clustered Bar.
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The bar chart does clearly show
the different scores of the dwarfs.
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But with positive and negative numbers,
my view is that it's more intuitive to
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see the negative values as going down from
the axes, as opposed to the left of it.
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You can see 0 is right here, and
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it actually overlaps the label of Grumpy.
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Let's change this to a column version and
see what happens.
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Change chart type.
1:01
Column, OK.
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So in this example,
I think a column chart is a better
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way to tell the story of how the dwarfs
played versus the target score of par.
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We can see that Grumpy was the best
golfer because he scored below par.
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In golf, the person with
the lowest score is the winner.
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Sneezy was the worst golfer with
a still very respectable ten over par.
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Another thing to consider is that,
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in this example, the names of
the golfers are all fairly short.
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If their names are much longer, it might
actually be good to use a bar chart
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instead because fitting all their names
along the x-axis can become cluttered.
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So I am going to change their names to,
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Aristotle Duderino 1.
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And then I'm going to copy this down.
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Two.
2:08
Three, I'm using keyboard
shortcuts on the PC.
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They're a little different on Macs.
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But on a PC it's F2 to get
to the formula window.
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On a Mac, it will be Ctrl+U or
Cmd+U, depending on your setup.
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What kind of name is Aristotle Duderino?
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I have no idea.
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Anyway, I want to copy
the dwarfs' names so
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I don't lose them and have to retype them.
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I'm gonna paste those there.
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And, Copy these over.
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You can see now on the chart it's
a little bit cluttered down here.
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It's not to bad, but it's a little bit
cluttered, so let's change it again.
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Design, change Chart Type, go back to Bar.
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Okay.
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With a bar chart, it's easier to read
the names in digesting information.
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But you still have this
negative value going left.
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So my preference in this situation would
be to use the column chart still, and
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format the axis labels differently.
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We'll cover formatting more
later on in this course.
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This example illustrates how, as someone
working with data visualization,
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you are gonna have to exercise
your own judgment regularly.
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It's always helpful to ask the question,
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what's gonna tell
the story the most clearly?
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What visualization communicates
the most information most clearly?
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It's okay to experiment with
different types of charts before
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coming to a final decision.
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That is absolutely okay.
4:00
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