Ready to escape the bar chart? I talked about Designs to Start Using Instead at the DataScienceGO conference in April 2021.

Watch the Conference Session

Choose Your Own Adventure

This was a Choose Your Own Adventure presentation, where I gave the conference attendees a chance to vote for the chart families they wanted to learn about.

These non-linear presentations aren’t for everyone. You need to be extremely comfortable with the topic area and with presenting. You can learn more about Choose Your Own Adventure presentations here.

Exploratory Data Visualization

First, we talked about my three favorite techniques for exploratory data visualization:

1. Spark lines
2. Data Bars
3. Heat Tables

Spark Lines

Want to add miniature trend lines to your spreadsheet? Here’s how:

• Highlight the top row of your dataset (the numbers that you want to visualize).
• Go to the Insert tab.
• Click on the Sparklines button.
• Follow the instructions: Choose where you want the sparklines to be placed. I usually position them off to the right side of my dataset.

Data Bars

Want to explore your dataset with miniature horizontal bars? Here’s how:

• Highlight the data you want to visualize.
• Stay on the Home tab.
• Click on the Conditional Formatting button.
• Choose a solid-filled Data Bar.

Heat Tables

We can also explore our dataset with instant color-coding. Here’s how to add a heat map or heat table to your spreadsheet:

• Highlight the data you want to visualize.
• Stay on the Home tab.
• Click on the Conditional Formatting button.
• Choose a Color Scale.

PLEASE avoid the inaccessible options—anything with red and green. Most of the Conditional Formatting options are absolute garbage, to be honest. Here’s a blog post that lists which Conditional Formatting options to avoid altogether—and what to use instead.

Want more info? In the video, you’ll see me open Excel and provide how-to tutorials.

Maps

Next, we discussed a few options for maps.

Choropleth Maps

You’ve seen this one: The regular ol’ color-coded map, or choropleth. Big numbers are dark. These maps are familiar and intuitive.

But, there’s a problem with regular maps: The large places can dwarf the small places. No matter how dark we color-in tiny Delaware, for example, the larger places like Texas and Alaska will always steal the show.

Cartographers have a name for this misleading issue with regular maps. It’s called The Alaska Effect.

Tile Grid Maps

Don’t worry, we’re not doomed by The Alaska Effect! There are a couple alternatives worth mentioning.

Square tile grid maps can help us overcome The Alaska Effect. Every location is the same shape and size, so now our audience only has to look at color. In other words, since Delaware and Texas are the same shape and size, we’re free to focus entirely on color.

BUT.

There’s a learning curve with tile grid maps. They’re almost too novel. Sometimes we spend more time focusing on why our home state isn’t in the right spot than on actually finding patterns in the data.

Tile grid maps have become more and more common over the years. In the video, I show you some real-life examples from the Urban Institute, the Washington Post, Child Trends, CNN, and National Geographic.

Hex Maps

Rather than using squares…. What if we try hexagons?

With six edges, hex maps give us more flexibility in arranging the shapes. That way, the maps can look closer to real-life maps.

In the video, I discuss some additional advantage of hex maps:

• Hex maps combat the Alaska Effect.
• Hex maps include more of the correct neighboring states compared to square maps.
• Hex maps include the correct southern tips.
• Hex maps include more notches for the Great Lakes.
• Hex maps visualize the correct four corners of the U.S.

And of course, hex maps aren’t just for the United States. You can create maps for zip codes, Census tracts, states, provinces, countries, etc. In the video, I show you a waffle map of African countries.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard this from workshop participants.

Bill Gates, are you reading this??

Microsoft Excel is lonnnnng overdue for some updates.

Don’t get me wrong—it’s still my favorite program. With 750 million users worldwide, I won’t be switching to anything else. It’s used by every business professional I know for at least part of their workflow.

Earlier this week, I was invited to guest lecture at Baruch College. Thanks to Professor Mahmoud Kamal Ahmadi for inviting me!

I’m normally very zen about data visualization. I expected to bring that peace of mind to Professor Ahmadi’s students.

Here’s my calm before the storm selfie:

“Sure, some of Excel’s default formatting is hard to decipher. And isn’t accessible for people with disabilities,” I’ve said a million times. “But with some behind-the-scenes editing, we can still make powerful visualizations inside Excel.”

I’m getting tired of making excuses for Microsoft.

Shouldn’t they know better by now??

I started to teach the Baruch College students about exploratory data visualization with conditional formatting. I couldn’t help but rant about the bad formatting as I went. It was 8pm at night. My filter had disappeared; I couldn’t help it. Sorry not sorry, Microsoft.

Wait, What’s Conditional Formatting??

Conditional Formatting is a fancy way of saying “if-then visuals.”

If the number is above 50, then fill the cell with red.

If the number is below average, make the font bold.

On and on.

Conditional Formatting is Ann K. Emery’s favorite button in Excel (along with the pivot tables button). It’s hiding in plain sight on our Home tab.

How to Use Conditional Formatting in Microsoft Excel

Conditional Formatting lets us create near-instant visuals.

These visuals are helpful for both exploratory and explanatory purposes. Exploratory data visualization is for us, the spreadsheet users and graph-makers. These near-instant visuals help us uncover patterns. Explanatory data visualization is typically for others, like our supervisor, Board of Directors, or other stakeholder groups. These near-instant visuals can be shared with others inside of dashboards, scorecards, and one-pagers to explain key findings to our audiences.

Here’s how to use Conditional Formatting in Microsoft Excel:

1. Highlight or select some of the values in your spreadsheet. You can use Conditional Formatting on numbers, percentages, currency, and even words.
2. Go to the Home tab.
3. Click on the Conditional Formatting button.
4. Choose one of the options, like Highlight Cells Rules, Top/Bottom Rules, or Data Bars.
5. Enjoy your near-instant visual!
6. Edit edit edit. With the cells still selected, go back to the Conditional Formatting button. On the very bottom of the list, you’ll see an option for Manage Rules. This is a fancy way of saying edit. You can adjust most aspects of your visual: the colors, the cutoff values, more.

Conditional Formatting in Microsoft Excel that Should Be Retired ASAP

Conditional Formatting is mostly excellent.

I love the speed. I love the instant understanding I get by seeing my numbers come to life.

But I hate hate hate the ableism.

Some of the Conditional Formatting options are terrible for people with color vision deficiencies.

Others are terrible for grayscale printing. (When was the last time you got excited about paying for colored ink cartridges?)

Others are just terribly busy-looking and could easily be improved with Graphic Design 101 skills.

Here are 24 of Excel’s conditional formatting techniques that should be retired ASAP.

These visuals are:

• too time-consuming to read,
• not accessible, or
• look like they’re from 1995.

3 Arrows (Colored)

Nice try, but so busy. I’ll show you something better in a moment.

3 Triangles

A bit easier to skim, but we can do better.

4 Arrows (Colored)

Why do the yellow arrows point in two different directions?

3 Arrows (Gray)

4 Arrows (Gray)

5 Arrows (Gray)

There’s nothing useful here. Don’t make me write three different sentences about why these three options are worthless.

3 Traffic Lights (Unrimmed)

I’m about to become really unpopular with 99% of people who make business dashboards, but….

We should really stop using traffic light color-coding altogether.

Green-red color combos aren’t accessible for people with color vision deficiencies (more on this later).

Sure, red-green combos are intuitive. For those of us who can see them. But they’re useless for everyone else.

3 Traffic Lights (Rimmed)

Let’s make the colors even smaller and harder to see.

Red to Black

These tones are confusing to me. Don’t we associate both red and black as “bad” colors? Why is red = high percentages? And black = low percentages? Sure, Excel lets us flip-flop these colors, but the question remains—aren’t red and black both “bad?”

4 Traffic Lights

Now, Excel is saying that black is even worse than red?? These inconsistencies kill me. And since when do traffic lights have 4 different colors? I’ve never seen a black lightbulb in a traffic light. So more for intuitive traffic light coding.

3 Signs

I want to love these. Although the 3 Signs design would technically pass 508 compliance accessibility guidelines (because our viewers aren’t relying on color alone—they can also see the different shapes) it’s still so busy.

There’s also the issue of combining both categorical coding (a diamond vs. triangle vs. circle) with diverging coding (red is worst, yellow is medium, green is best). Forgive the jargon, but as a research methods geek, this bothers me.

3 Symbols (Circled)

These tiny symbols would be impossible to skim at a glance in a tiny spreadsheet.

3 Flags

GAH. Probably the hardest to read from this bunch.

3 Symbols (Uncircled)

Maybe the easiest to skim from this bunch? But still a bit busy.

3 Stars

This design gets creativity points.

5 Quarters

These aren’t so bad to skim right now—because I’ve already organized the spreadsheet from lowest to highest. Imagine a mismatched list (e.g., 20%, then 80%, then 10%, then 50%….). It would get messy.

5 Boxes

There could be more contrast between the gray and blue, i.e., it would be easier to read if the gray was a bit lighter, or the blue a bit darker.

4 Ratings

I actually love bar and column charts for at-a-glance findings.

But, these would be easier to read if they were horizontal bar charts, not vertical column charts.

I’ll show you an example with horizontal bars in a moment.

5 Ratings

Same shortcomings here.

Data Bars (Gradient)

Speaking of bar and column charts… Do you see how much easier it is to compare bars than columns?

BUT, not these gradient bars. We need to retire these. The most important part of the bar chart is the right-most endpoint. So why does Microsoft fade these out to lighter colors… therefore making the most important thing harder to see???

Data Bars (Solid)

Winner winner chicken dinner! More of these, please.

Green-Yellow Red Color Scales

Yes, I know what you’re thinking. This stoplight coding is intuitive.

But only for those of us who can see red and green as distinct colors. For people with color vision deficiencies, this color scheme is worthless.

Let’s retire this ableist color scale from Excel.

Green-White-Red Color Scales

Not accessible. Ableist.

Blue-White-Red Color Scales

Better than the red-green color coding, since at least it’s legible for people with color vision deficiencies.

But, this wouldn’t print well in grayscale. More on this in a moment.

Green-Yellow Color Scale

Not horrible… but not as clear as it could be.

Green-White Color Scale

Winner winner chicken dinner! More of these, please.

Look at the green-yellow and green-white options next to each other.

Do you see how the green-white color scale is easier to read? The white is, well, whiter than the yellow. Therefore, there’s even more contrast when compared to the green.

This scale is colorblind-friendly and grayscale-friendly.

Red-White Color Scale

Winner winner chicken dinner! More of these, please.

This is the opposite tone of the green-white color scale.

In other words, use this color scale to emphasize that low = bad.

How about Grayscale Printing?

We should always assume that someone will print our visuals. That printing may happen in grayscale, not full color, to save money.

I did a quick grayscale test on these color scales to show you what they’d look like.

Do you see how the first three are worthless? The fourth one, green-yellow, is okay. The last two are the easiest to read.

(In Dataviz Jargon: Transform that diverging scale into a sequential scale. It’s harder to notice differences between two different hues, like red and blue, than to notice differences between gradations, like light green vs. dark green. And it’s impossible to read diverging scales in grayscale.)

How about Color Vision Deficiencies?

I also did a color-blindness check.

First, I uploaded a screenshot to the Color Vision Deficiency Simulator website.

Next, I investigated what the color scales would look like for someone with protanopia. Eek.

The first four are worthless.

Green-yellow is okay.

Green-white and red-white are best.

Well-Formatted Conditional Formatting in Microsoft Excel Worth Keeping

Keeping score? Here are the conditional formatting visuals we can keep using:

• Green-White Color Scale
• Red-White Color Scale
• Data Bars

I’ll add another keeper to the list: Squares and circles made with the Webdings symbol font.

For example, we can use Webdings g’s and the rept() function to create an icon array, as shown above.

Or, we can use Webdings g’s and c’s to create a series of filled-unfilled squares.

Or, we can use Webdings n’s to create a series of light-dark circles.

It’s faster to skim a list of filled-unfilled squares, or light-dark circles, than to skim the stars, flags, or mini column charts shown earlier.

How to Add Conditional Formatting to Your Microsoft Excel Spreadsheet

Want to create conditional formatting to explore initial patterns in your spreadsheet? Here are links to detailed tutorials:

• How to Create Data Bars in Microsoft Excel
• How to Make a Heat Table in Microsoft Excel
• More examples of easy-to-skim symbols and icons made with symbol fonts (Webdings and Wingdings)
• Webdings example: Re-envisioning a University’s Monthly Report: Two Reports with Two Different Purposes      
• Webdings example: Visualizing Your Annual Survey Results: Four Makeovers That Didn’t Work, and the Fifth That Did

Your Turn

What are some additional features of Excel that should be retired? Or added?

In those formal research settings, I was taught to analyze the data first and visualize the data second. We crunched our numbers and poured through dozens of pages of tables during staff meetings (SAS print-outs in tiny font, which was oh-so-readable). Much later on, while prepping for a conference presentation or journal article submission, we designed graphs to showcase key findings.

Although I learned data analysis and data visualization as two distinct phases, nowadays I mix and mingle them a lot. Our brains can spot patterns in a visualization much faster than we can read through pages of numbers in tables.

I use exploratory visualization techniques early and often. My favorite exploratory visualization techniques are sparklines and data bars. I use these techniques daily, and I want to share them with you, too.

Sparklines

Here’s a two-minute tutorial about sparklines, which are mini line graphs.

I use sparklines during early exploratory analyses when I’m trying to spot juicy patterns. Are my numbers generally going up? Going down? Are there lots of peaks and valleys? Or are the numbers generally flat? I insert these quickie visuals and then sit back and reflect on the patterns I see.

I also use sparklines in dashboard projects, like when I need a one-pager to show to others.

Here’s how to create sparklines:

Data Bars

Here’s another two-minute tutorial about data bars, which are mini bar charts:

In this example, I’m pretending that one of the performing arts groups is tracking how many tickets they’ve sold online, over the phone, and at their in-person box office for an upcoming show:

I write about chart-choosing and sketching a lot and wanted to share these ideas with you, too.

Sketching goes like this:

You grab your already-tallied data table, like the one shown above. You’ve already done a little number-crunching, simple stuff like sums and averages.

Then, you set your cell phone’s timer for 15 minutes.

And you step away from your computer.

Your job is to draw all the different versions of this dataset before you sit down to your computer. Draw, draw, draw. Aim for 5, 10, or 15 different types of graphs. The more you learn about data visualization, the more versions you’ll be able to draw. What would your dataset look like as a bar chart? As a stacked bar chart? A line graph? A pie chart? A tree map? I advise workshop participants to even draw the bad graphs, the really bad stuff, like 3D exploding pie charts, if it’s on their mind and taking up precious mental space. Get those thoughts out of your mind and onto the paper. Put a big X through the awful graphs if you need to.

Once your rough sketching is complete, take your drafts down the hall to your coworker. Think aloud. Talk about how this graph emphasizes this one thing, and that graph highlights that other thing. What’s the message your team is going for? Which graph matches that message the closest? Sometimes you know your message ahead of time; other times, you fine-tune your message during this sketching process.

And finally, I give you permission to return to the computer and make the most promising graph in your software program of choice. If you design graphs on your computer before sketching on paper, I guarantee that you’ll overlook a few options. You’ll be boxed-in by the software program’s limited chart gallery. Explore everything on paper first and figure out the software later.

Sketch 1: A Line Graph

Here’s what my sketches looked like. I’m starting with the most basic sketch: a regular ol’ line graph that just focuses on online ticket sales. When I draw, I often go through my data table methodically, often starting with just the first row of data — online sales — and peeking at the shape of those numbers. And what did I see? A tall, flat line.

Sketch 2: More Line Graphs

Once I’ve got a handle on the first row in the table, I might add the second row, the third row, and so on, so that my brain can compare the categories to each other one at a time. Here’s another regular ol’ line graph that shows all three ticket sales types together. More contextual data = more background information available for decision-making thought processes.

Sketch 3: A Slope Graph

Or, how about a slope graph for those audiences that don’t need to see all the peaks and valleys? Some people just want to see the big-picture, starting-and-ending points. The higher-ups, like donors and some supervisors, might fall into this category. I’m pretending that a supervisor knocked on my door and said, Hey, how are we doing this year? And what about five years ago, when we launched that new sales strategy? Slope graphs cut to the chase and make before/after comparisons easy.

Sketch 4: A Bar Chart

If we’re aiming for big-picture findings, how about a bar chart that only displays the five-year sums? We could ignore the year-by-year numbers and only display the total sales numbers.

Sketch 5: Small Multiples Line Graph

Returning to the multi-year version again… This fictional dataset is semi-spaghetti, meaning that the three lines started to intersect a little when they were all displayed in the same graph. Not so crowded that the criss-crossing gets in the way of interpreting the data, but, borderline. If your real dataset gets too zig-zaggy and criss-crossy, try breaking the single graph into three separate graphs with a small multiples layout.

Small multiples graphs let my brain interpret the graph piecemeal. I can check out the online sales and think about the implications of that pattern. Then, I shift my gaze a couple inches to the right and check out the phone sales. Finally, I shift my gaze to the right a bit more and examine the in-person box office sales. The layout guides my attention through the graph slowly, rather than overwhelming me by throwing all three lines on the page at once. I see the online, phone, and in-person patterns both individually and as a whole.

Sketch 6: Small Multiples Line Graph that Compares Actual Numbers with a Goal

At this point in the sketching process, I began daydreaming about having a more interesting dataset and wishing that I would’ve included goal sales numbers alongside those actual ticket sales numbers. A target line might be dotted and/or in a lighter color to add much-needed context.

Sketch 7: Stacked Columns

Or, maybe the viewers need to see part-to-whole patterns in a stacked column chart. I transformed my table’s counts into percentages to see what proportion of tickets were sold online, over the phone, or in-person. The five-year total would be nudged to the right a bit.

Sketch 8: A Pie Chart

Finally, a sketch that’ll make the purists cringe, a pie chart. Don’t worry, I teach my workshop participants about alternatives to pie charts. I might use a pie chart when I want my fictional viewers to see the part-to-whole comparisons. I’d use a darker color to draw their eyes towards one slice and add a sentence or two beside the chart to make sure their attention stays focused on that same slice.

One dataset, many correct options.

Did you come up with additional sketches? Comment and let me know.

I primarily use them to quickly explore patterns in my dataset.

Sometimes I decide to make an actual bar chart of the data later on. Other times, I’m simply using these tiny charts to help my brain spot the key patterns.

How to Create Data Bars in Microsoft Excel

To create Data Bars:

1. Highlight or select the range of numbers that you want to visualize.
2. Then, go to the Home tab’s Conditional Formatting icon.
3. Select Data Bars.
4. You can create gradient-filled data bars or solid-colored data bars, and you’ve got a variety of color options available. In the example below, I created blue solid-colored bars.

That’s it!

Optional Edits to Excel’s Data Bars

Notice how the bars will automatically enlarge themselves to fit the size of the cell. In the example below, watch how the bars get wider as I widen the column.

You might even change the text color — from black to white — so that the numbers show up better against the blue background.

After I insert Data Bars, I often sort the numbers from largest to smallest or smallest to largest as a second layer of behind-the-scenes exploration.

To sort your numbers, highlight the range of numbers, go to the Data tab and click the little A to Z button or Z to A button (to arrange numbers from least to greatest or greatest to least, respectively).

When creating traditional tables, I follow the Dark Horse Analytics guide. When I’m presenting tables in a presentation, webinar, or full-color report, I create heat tables.

In heat tables, higher numbers are darker and lower numbers are lighter. Viewers find patterns in the data much faster than if they were reading line by line of text from the table.

Here’s how to make heat tables in good ol’ Microsoft Excel.

Step 1. Highlight the Cells That You Want to Color-Code

Ignore the categories on the left.

Ignore the table headers along the top.

Just select the actual numbers or percentages in the body of the table.

Step 2. Click on the Conditional Formatting Icon

It’s hiding in plain sight on the Home tab.

Step 3. Select One of the Color Scales

For sequential variables, choose a sequential color scale (a one-color scale, e.g., green faded into white).

For diverging variables, choose a diverging color scale (a two-color scale, e.g., red versus blue).

Congratulations, you’re finished! 

Start exploring your data.

Which patterns stand out now?

Bonus! Add White Borders to Differentiate Cells from One Another

White borders help with color printing and with black-and-white printing (so the cells don’t bleed into each other).

Here’s the before version, in which the cells don’t have any outlines. The greens blur into each other.

Here’s the after version, in which I’ve added white outlines to each cell.

I just highlighted all the cells, went to the tiny border icon on the Home tab, and added white outlines.

Bonus! Sort the Data from Greatest to Least Instead of Alphabetically

I always add an intentional order to my spreadsheet.

When I initially downloaded this dataset from a website, Column A was ordered alphabetically.

I decided to order the dataset from greatest to least instead of alphabetically.

You can also order your dataset from least to greatest. It just depends on which pattern you want to emphasize.

Use the Sort feature. Or use Filters (Home –> Sort & Filter –> Filter).

If you don’t use spreadsheets on a regular basis, then you can follow my tutorial on sorting and filtering your spreadsheets.

Here’s the before version, in which the spreadsheet is ordered alphabetically.

Here’s the after version, in which the spreadsheet is ordered from greatest to least based on the numbers in Column B.

Bonus! Adjust the Print Settings so the Heat Table can be Printed or PDF’d

Half the time, I’m creating heat tables for my own purposes. I want an at-a-glance view of my dataset. I want to see whether any numbers are really big.. or really small… or whether I spot any errors right away. Heat tables are excellent exploratory data visualization techniques.

The other half of the time, I’m creating heat tables for someone else. I might send them the Excel file. Or, I might send them a PDF’d handout. Or, I might bring a printout from the spreadsheet to a meeting and pass out the handouts to everyone at attendance so that we can discuss the patterns shown in the table.

Data People like opening up Excel. But Regular People like opening up PDFs. Excel files can be daunting to someone who’s not using that file on a regular basis.

So, I get the data out of spreadsheets and into real-world conversations by PDF’ing my heat table.

If you’re preparing to PDF your heat table so that it can be shared with others, I recommend that you:

• Add a title.
• Repeat the column headers at the top of each page.
• Add a footer with the date and page numbers.
• Adjust the font type and font size.

Once you learn to adjust print settings you’ll save hours of time and every printed or PDF’d spreadsheet will look more professional.

Here’s what the print preview looks like in Excel:

And here’s what the two-page PDF would look like:

Bonus! Customize the Color Palette

No more default Microsoft colors!

Use your audience’s custom colors. It only takes a few minutes to update your visualization’s colors, and it makes your visualization look more professional.

You can find custom color codes in an existing style guide. Or, you can identify color codes with an eyedropper tool or by using good ol’ Microsoft Paint.

Then, highlight the cells again and return to Home –> Conditional Formatting –> Color Scales –> More Rules.

Select new colors to correspond with the lowest and highest values in your table.

Just click on More Colors and type in the RBG codes.

Here’s what your heat table would look like in purple.

Or, in yellow.

Or, in blue.

Download the Spreadsheet

This two-sheet spreadsheet contains the “before” and “after” dataset used in this blog post. The “before” dataset is just a regular ol’ dataset–some rows and columns without any color formatting. The “after” version has a heat table, is sorted, has a title, and is ready to print or PDF.

Download the Spreadsheet

Join the Conversation

Have you tried this tutorial? Comment below and link to a screenshot of your own heat table!

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