Bar Charts


Bar Charts

Let's begin with the Problem/Solution approach by looking at an all-too-typical numeric slide, the bar chart in Figure 8.1. (Please see Figure 2 in the insert for the color version of Figure 8.1.) You've probably encountered this type of graphic in many presentations. This example depicts six years of steady sales growth in the history of an up-and-coming company, information that ought to play an exciting role in telling the company's story.

Figure 8.1. How not to design a bar chart.

graphics/08fig01.gif

Figure 8.2. The same bar chart, simplified and clarified.

graphics/08fig02.gif

There's certainly plenty of information here. In fact, the problem is that there's too much information for a presentation. If this chart was in a document, such as a business plan or annual report, the reader, as the audience to the writer, would need all this data to understand the chart and identify the figures. The reader would also have close-up access to the document. But in a presentation, the audience is forced involuntarily to make multiple eye sweeps across the enlarged image to see all the data, while their minds are simultaneously processing all the data. All this ratcheting around and thinking is excessive sensory activity that disconnects the audience from the presenter. The slide becomes the focus of the presentation.

Sound familiar? These same underlying problems have a negative impact on the graphics, just as they do with the story, drastically reducing the potential to persuade.

Here's how to communicate the same information successfully: First of all, notice how much print clutters the slide. There's a title and a subtitle that essentially repeat the same information. There are two labels, one at the left side of the slide ("IN MILLIONS OF DOLLARS") that is standing on its end, and one sprawled out along the bottom of the slide ("FISCAL YEAR ENDING DECEMBER 31"). Each label takes up a great deal of space while providing information that is either very simple or not terribly important. There are more than 30 numbers on the slide: nine along the left scale, 18 superimposed on the six bars, and the six dates along the bottom edge of the graph. The CAGR (Compound Annual Growth Rate) sticks out to the right like an outrigger. The source credit to The Wall Street Journal is in a font size so tiny it rings of the fine print in a shady contract. The six bars depicting revenues are each subdivided into three different colored sections. And all of this data is backed by grid lines that resemble bargain- basement , bamboo-slat Venetian blinds.

Clearly the person who designed this slide has never heard of Less Is More, or didn't believe it.

Notice how much work your eyes (and your mind) must do to absorb all this information. It's not only a matter of wading through all the words and numbers to decipher which ones are important and which aren't, it's also a matter of attempting to draw connections among the disjointed parts of the graph. In short, this slide is a visual mess. How can we improve it?

We can start by simplifying and cleaning up the unnecessary verbiage. Since the title and subtitle are redundant, we can eliminate the subtitle. The graph itself clearly contains six bars, which are labeled by year, so it isn't necessary for the subtitle to spell out the number of years covered.

Rather than devoting so much space to the labels "IN MILLIONS OF DOLLARS" and "FISCAL YEAR ENDING DECEMBER 31," we can use simple abbreviations. Nor do we need to spell out full dates; in this context, if a bar is labeled "'99," everyone in the audience will understand that it represents 1999 rather than 1899 or 2099. Give The Wall Street Journal its due by making the font size legible. Finally, does your audience really need to know the exact dollar figure for each product sold? Probably not; it depends on the point of the slide. If the purpose is to demonstrate total revenue growth, then the audience can see the relative amounts of each product by the colors. Remove the numbers in the bars.

This is a distinct improvement. We've substantially reduced the amount of work the audience must do to understand the graph. But there's still more to be done. To identify the different colored parts of the bars, the audience members must shift their eyes up and down repeatedly to the legend at the bottom, like a bouncing Yo-Yo.

Only when the audience discovers the legend at the bottom of the slide, which matches the colors to Product X, Product Y, and Product Z, does the explanation become clear. You can feel the movement here on the page, where the distance is only several inches. Imagine the feeling when you traverse a space of several feet on a projection screen. Minimize Eye Sweeps .

Furthermore, anyone in the audience who wants to figure out the value of a particular bar must move his or her eyes back and forth, left and right, several times between the scale and the bar, like a fast and furious Ping-Pong match a futile match, too, because, at a distance, the human eye can't find the exact tick mark. Again, Minimize Eye Sweeps .

There are some simple adjustments we can make to clear up these problems. Look at Figure 8.2: (Please see Figure 3 in the insert for the color version of Figure 8.2.)

Figure 8.3. A typical pie chart.

graphics/08fig03.gif

By removing the scale from the left and placing the revenue totals directly on top of the bars, we see the growth trend in one sweep of the eyes. By removing the legend at the bottom of the graph (along with the usual trifling little squares) and simply labeling the three different colored bar segments in matching colored text boxes along the right margin, the eyes identify products X, Y, and Z at the end of the eye sweep. Simpler still would be to eliminate the stacks and create separate charts for each product.

Notice the three-dimensional effect on the bars. Some people like this effect, others hate it. As with typography in the previous chapter, these are matters of individual taste, and the same Latin proverb applies: De gustibus non est disputandum . There's no arguing taste.

The simplified version of the slide will have much more impact in your presentation. The important story it tells about your company's impressive sales growth will hit home much more forcefully . Any numeric slide can be dramatically improved by ruthlessly eliminating unnecessary words, numbers, scales , and legends.

Any numeric slide can be dramatically improved by ruthlessly eliminating unnecessary words, numbers, scales, and legends.



Presenting to Win. The Art of Telling Your Story
Presenting to Win: The Art of Telling Your Story, Updated and Expanded Edition
ISBN: 0137144172
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2003
Pages: 94

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