Creating great graphs

Everyone can create a graph (at least we think everyone can), but how can you create a really great graph? We'll show you in this task.

Engage thrusters

So, what makes a great graph? We think a great graph is a graph that contains just enough information (less is more!) and is visually attractive.

Let's create a graph to compare the total sales volumes of 2012 with the total sales volumes of 2013. We used Microsoft Excel for this. First, we selected the table we want to convert to a graph. Then, we chose the Charts tab, the type we wanted (Line), and the subtype of Line Charts. We chose the most simple line chart. Excel did the rest for us and created a nice line chart.

However, we can do better than that. When you have a good look at the chart, you can see that the numbers on the left-hand side won't be readable in a large screen. We could make them bigger and abbreviate them to 1.2M instead of 1,200,000. However, if we want to compare the numbers of 2012 with 2013 and...