Did you know that turkey consumption soared after the launch of Microsoft Windows 1.0? And did you know that this growth trajectory lasted until Windows 3.0? Coincidence? I don’t think so… I find this amusing. Sorry. By the way, don’t try to be funny when making charts. Most of the time you’ll fail, specially if … Read more
Stephen Few left a comment in my post “Is Data Visualization Useful? You’ll Have to Prove it“. We all have much to learn with Steve, so instead of leaving the discussion buried in an old post, I thought it would be interesting to make it more visible. Please read the comment then come here and … Read more
Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach a man to fish and he will eat for a lifetime. Here is a good example of give-a-fish versus teach-to-fish: if you search for “excel dashboard” you’ll get at the top of the search results my own Excel dashboard tutorial and … Read more
Big changes in this blog for 2010! First, since slightly more people search for “Excel charts” than for “Jorge Camoes” I decided to accept reality and move the blog to a new domain name, from charts.jorgecamoes.com to www.excelcharts.com/blog/. Also, the blog will be hosted on a more reliable host, and will get a serious face-lift. … Read more
Do you want to know how to create an advanced Excel dashboard? Do you want to learn it online? Then I have great news for you: I’ve been working on a web-based version of my Excel dashboard tutorial and it will be available soon. Better yet, it will be available for free for all current … Read more
Making a chart is so simple that even a chimpanzee can be trained to do it – press F11 and get the banana (that would explain the poor quality of many business charts and presentations – and the raising banana consumption). To prove that they are better than chimpanzees at making charts, humans invented the … Read more
We all love Edward Tufte (perhaps too much), but if you want a more consistent and articulate data visualization theory you must read the French cartographer Jacques Bertin. And did you know that one of the best (and remarkably unknown) data visualization experts is Rolf Hichert, from Germany? Unfortunately he isn’t eager to share his ideas … Read more
I often read that you should make your charts “memorable”. Well, I’m not sure if this is a good advice, specially when people use “memorable” and “professional-looking” in the same sentence. It’s OK if you are a graphic designer and you want to spend some time crafting an unique chart that draws the attention of … Read more
Creativity is such a positive quality that it is almost painful to argue that you shouldn’t try to be creative when making charts. But you shouldn’t. Really. If you are too creative and the users can’t understand the chart in a few seconds they will dismiss it as useless. If you break basic conventions (time … Read more
(They don’t have to be explained.) [Update: Sally Bigwood said it better here].