Tornado Charts in Excel 2007 Update

This is an update to my previous post on tornado charts.

As reader Shaun pointed out, the instructions were created under Excel 2003. Let’s refresh them to Excel 2007.

There is no need for any external add-ins for making good-looking tornado charts. And it takes only 5 steps. Let’s start with data in a table like this:

1. Select the data, excluding the Delta column
2. On the Insert ribbon, choose Bar. Pick Clustered Bar (first one in the 2-D section)
3. Right-click on the horizontal axis, choose Format Axis. On the bottom of the Axis Options pane look for Vertical Axis crosses:, choose the Axis value radio button, and type your base case value (7 in the example)
4. Without closing the window, choose the vertical axis of the chart. Again on Axis Options, check the box Categories in reverse order, and set the Axis Labels menu to Low
5. Without closing the window, click on any of the bars, which should bring the Series Options pane. Move the slider Series Overlap completely to the right (Overlapped).

That’s it! Now you can format the chart as you like. The final result should look something like this:

Keep reading to learn more, to watch a screencast, or download the Excel file

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Extreme Makeover: Chart Edition – July 19

As every week I end up receiving at lest one junkchart specimen, I’m starting the Extreme Makeover: Chart Edition series. I’ll show the old chart, the proposed improvement, and why I believe the old one doesn’t work. I’d love to hear your comments as well.

Here it goes:

And the makeover:

Problems:

• Vertical labels: Even when the list of items is long and is tempting to use columns to use the width of the screen versus the height to show the items, it forces the audience to turn their heads to read the labels (or to not read them at all)

• Clutter: Does your audience need to know to the dollar the GDP in each region? The new chart uses ‘000s. People will remember more easily data they get interested in. Will someone interested in the Shangdong province remember the GPD per capita is $3,162? More chance they will recall it was like 3.2 thousand, right?
• More clutter: Once you label the bars/columns, why keeping the axis? Also, the arrow to highlight the 9x difference adds clutter to the chart
• Lack of labels/legends/source: The original chart has an average line, which is evident only on close inspection because it is not labeled. Also, the columns are grouped in colors, without legends, so a reader, like me, is left clueless about their meaning. Finally, every chart using data must show its source (I’d have noted one if I knew where the original came from)

In charts, Simplicity is King: I’m assuming in the context of the presentation it was necessary to include every province by name.
“Is this cart needed? Is this level of detail needed?” That’s a question you should ask yourself before including any chart. The answer is completely situation-specific. What is the key message to communicate? Who is the audience? What will they look for from their specific viewpoint?

So, what do you think? How would you further improve my proposal?