Chapter 2: Choosing an effective visualization

Question 1

Why do we need to be cautious when reducing multiple numbers to a single one? P 55

Answer 1

I advise caution, however, any time you reduce from multiple numbers down to a single one—🧨 think about what context may be lost in doing so. 🧨 In this case, I find that the actual magnitude of the numbers (20% and 41%) is helpful in interpreting and understanding the change.

Question 2

What is the best way of visualizing When you have just a number or two that you want to communicate? P 56

Answer 2

To use the numbers directly!

Question 3

When is it best to use tables? P 56

Answer 3

Tables are great for communicating to a mixed audience, whose members will each look for their particular row of interest.

If you need to communicate multiple different units of measure, this is also typically easier with a table than a graph.

Question 4

Is using a table in a live presentation a good idea? P 56

Answer 4

No

Question 5

What is the best setting for table borders? light? dark? thin? thick? P 57

Answer 5

You want the design to fade into the background. The data should be what stands out, not the borders.
letting the data take center stage. Don’t let heavy borders or shading compete for attention. Instead, think
of using light borders or simply white space to set apart elements
of the table.

Question 6

Using what can we draw heatmaps in Excel? P 58

Answer 6

Conditional formatting

Question 7

What do we need to add to the heatmaps to help the reader interpret the data easier? P 59

Answer 7

Include a 🧨 legend 🧨 to help the reader interpret the data (Like Low-High)

Question 8

Why scatter plots are not that often used in the business world? P 60

Answer 8

Scatter plots tend to be more frequently used in scientific fields
(and perhaps, because of this, are sometimes viewed as complicated
to understand by those less familiar with them). Though infrequent,
there are use cases for scatter plots in the business world as well.

Question 9

What are the two most commonly used line graphs? P 61

Answer 9

The standard line graph
The slope graph

Question 10

When you’re graphing time on the horizontal x‐axis of a line graph, the data plotted must be in consistent intervals. True/False P 62

Answer 10

When you’re graphing time on the horizontal x‐axis of a line graph, the data plotted must be in consistent intervals. Be consistent in the time points you plot

Question 11

In some cases, the line in your line graph may represent a
summary statistic, like the average, or the point estimate of
a forecast. If you also want to give a sense of the range (or
confidence level, depending on the situation), you can do
that directly on the graph by also visualizing this range.True/False

Answer 11

True

Question 11

What are slope graphs? P 63

Answer 11

Slopegraphs can be useful when you have 🧨 two 🧨 time periods or
points of comparison and want to quickly show relative increases
and decreases or differences across various categories between the
two data points.

Question 12

Bar charts MUST have a zero baseline. True/False P 68

Answer 12

True

Question 13

What is the point of having a zero baseline? P 68

Answer 13

So you don’t over zoom and make minor changes or differences appear significant.

Question 14

As you add more series of data in a bar chart, it won’t really become more difficult to focus on one at a time and pull out insight, so use multiple series bar charts often. True/False P 70 (search multiple series bar chart if you don’t remember what they are)

Answer 14

False.
Note that as you add more series of data, it becomes
more difficult to focus on one at a time and pull out insight, so use
multiple series bar charts with caution

Question 15

Use cases for stacked vertical bar charts are plenty! True/False

Answer 15

False
Use cases for stacked vertical bar charts are more limited, It is hard to compare the subcomponents across the various categories once you get beyond the bottom series (the one directly next to the x‐axis) because you no longer have a consistent baseline to use to compare.

Question 16

The waterfall chart can be used to pull apart the pieces of a ____ chart to focus on one at a time, or to show a ____

P 71

Answer 16

stacked bar, starting point, increases and decreases, and the resulting ending point

Question 17

If I had to pick a single go‐to graph for categorical data, it would be the____, which flips the vertical version on its side. Why?

P 73

Answer 17

horizontal bar chart
Because it is extremely easy to read.

This way by the time we get to the data, we already know what it represents (instead of the darting back and forth our eyes do between the data and category names with vertical bar charts)

Question 18

Similar to the stacked vertical bar chart, stacked horizontal bar charts can be used to show ____ but also give a sense of the subcomponent pieces. They can be structured to show either absolute values or sum to 100%.

P 74

Answer 18

the totals across different categories

Question 19

Give an example of when the stacked horizontal bar charts can be useful.

P 75

Answer 19

this approach can work well for visualizing survey data collected along a Likert scale (a scale commonly used in surveys that typically ranges from Strongly Disagree to Strongly Agree)

Question 20

Good data visualization—infographic or otherwise—is not simply a collection of facts on a given topic; good data visualization ____.

P 77

Answer 20

tells a story

Question 21

There are also some specific graph
types and elements that you should avoid: ____

P 77

Answer 21

pie charts (hard for people to read), donut charts, 3D(NEVER), and secondary y‐axes(drawing 2 y axes on two sides of x axis, generally not a good idea).

Question 22

You should avoid the use of a secondary or right‐hand y‐axis, but there are 2 ways we can do instead. what are they?

P 83

Answer 22

1. Don’t show the second y‐axis. Instead, label the data points that belong on this axis directly. (puts more attention on the specific numbers)
2. Pull the graphs apart vertically and have a separate y‐axis for each
   (both along the left) but leverage the same x‐axis across both.( puts more focus on the overarching trends.)