(These aren’t the exact numbers, age ranges, or years. But you get the idea.)

She already knew how to make population pyramids in Excel. Population pyramids require Level 4 vizardy skills. Woohoo!

But she wanted to take the population pyramid a step further, and she wanted to show how the population might change over time, especially for older adults.

So, she followed this online tutorial to add those curvy lines. (Yep, it’s made with a combo chart in Excel.)

Bare-Minimum Edits

As usual, we tackled the bare-minimum edits first:

• We removed the legend and directly labeled the data, which helps the graph pass “Big A Accessibility” rules (a.k.a. 508/ADA compliance).
• We nudged the bars closer together by reducing the gap width to make more of a smoothed-out histogram.
• We outlined the touching filled-in rectangles in white, a small detail that helps with grayscale printing.
• We used fewer colors. Before, there were 4 different hues: for 2020 males, 2030 males, 2020 females, and 2030 females. That’s a lot to keep track of! Instead, we color-coded by category (one hue for males, and another hue for females).

We also tried color-coding by year, instead of color-coding by sex, like this:

We were getting closer!

But we wanted to make sure that the forecasted numbers for 2030 were extremely obvious to viewers. For most of us, this isn’t a chart type that we see every day.

I was hesitant to keep the combo chart. This was an apples-to-apples comparison, so I wanted to use all bars.

(The bars/lines combo seemed more like an apples-to-oranges comparison, which this isn’t.)

Small Multiples Population Pyramids

Here’s a Dataviz Rule of Thumb:

Anytime your graph feels too dense… try creating more graphs.

Small multiples layouts can save the day!

The Traditional Version

We tried traditional and storytelling versions of a small multiples population pyramid.

Here’s what the traditional version would look like inside her report.

You’ll notice the topical titles, color-coding by category (one hue per year), and how the graphs are all one color.

The Storytelling Version

And here’s what the storytelling version would look like inside her report.

This version draws attention to the 65+ age group, which she wanted.

You’ll notice the takeaway title, the color-coding by category (one hue per year), the dark-light contrast (highlighting the residents who are ages 65+), and the annotations.

The Bottom Line

Even with the bare-minimum edits, I wasn’t a fan of the original combo chart. The bar-line combo was suggesting an apples-to-oranges comparison.

Instead, anytime your chart feels too dense (when there are literally lines and bars combined within one chart), try a small multiples layout instead!

We can format the chart as a traditional or storytelling version. In this case, storytelling was a perfect fit because we especially wanted to highlight the 65+ age group.

How do we overcome common pain points in data visualization and storytelling??

What’s the most important thing to keep in mind while editing our visualizations???

I recently discussed all these, and more, on the SuperDataScience podcast with the host, Jon Krohn.

With more than 600 episodes and hundreds of thousands of downloads each month, the SuperDataScience is the #1 podcast in the data field. What an honor!

What’s Inside

• My definition of data storytelling
• Common pain points and how to overcome them
• Best practices for data visualization
• Surprising spreadsheet tricks
• When static dashboards are more effective than interactive dashboards
• Top tips for presenting data in a slideshow

You can listen to or watch the episode here. Or, scroll down to read the highlights.

Listen to the Podcast

You can subscribe to the SuperDataScience podcast and search for episode #637.

Or, listen online here:

Watch the Conversation

The video version of the podcast is available on YouTube here:

Read the Transcript

Prefer to read the transcript? Download it here.

This was my favorite podcast conversation so far. I hope you enjoy listening to it!