In this video, you’ll see more than a dozen different charts that are possible inside Microsoft Excel.

What’s Inside

• 0:00 Intro
• 0:17 Dataviz On The Go
• 0:36 3 Levels of Excel Skills
• 1:05 Level 1: Overused Native Charts (Bars, Lines, Pies, etc.)
• 2:35 Level 2: Underused Native Charts (Combo, Tree, Sunburst, Maps, etc.)
• 4:01 Level 3: Non-Native Charts (Population Pyramids, Dumbbell Dots, Lollipops, etc.)
• 5:02 Disguises Needed for Non-Native Charts
• 5:54 Interactive Dashboards in Excel (Excel Tables, Pivot Tables, Pivot Charts, and Slicers)
• 6:16 Static Dashboards in Excel (Made in Excel, but Saved/Shared as PDFs)
• 6:41 Your Turn
• 6:55 A Personal Note

3 Levels of Excel Vizardry

I’ve taught data visualization in Excel a dozen different ways over the years.

Nowadays, I teach Excel dataviz based on the degree of behind-the-scenes hacking needed to produce that chart.

We start easy. Then, we work up to harder battles.

Here are the three Levels of Excel Vizardry:

• Level 1: Overused Native Charts
• Level 2: Underused Native Charts
• Level 3: Non-Native

Let’s go through some of the Excel secrets in more detail.

Level 1: Overused Native Charts

These are the familiar faces:

• Pies
• Donuts
• Bars and columns
• Clustered bars and clustered columns
• Stacked bars and stacked columns
• Line graphs

What are Native Charts?

“Native” charts mean they’re available from our menu with just a few clicks:

What’s Wrong with Overused Charts?

There’s nothing wrong with a bar chart here or there… but any chart gets boring when we show it over and over and over and over and over and over.

There’s also the issue of analytical depth — or lack of depth.. If we’re only using bar charts… then we’re only showing totals and averages. There are dozens more statistical approaches!

Beware! Formatting Needed

Stacked bar charts, for example.

They’re easy to make.

But we still have to:

• enlarge the font;
• darken the font (to pass official Accessibility rules for color contrast);
• directly label the data (so viewers aren’t relying on the colored legend alone — another Accessibility rule);
• outline the touching shapes in white (which helps with colorblindness and grayscale printing);
• show fewer increments in the scale (so it’s not so busy);
• decide whether to apply a dark-light contrast — or not (learn about data storytelling here); and
• adjust the gap width (if you want) to nudge the bars closer together.

Level 2: Underused Native Charts

This is where it starts getting fun!!

Excel can make:

• Combo charts (e.g., a column chart with a target line, as shown below)
• Overlapping Bars
• Area charts (where you shade the area underneath the line for better oomph and high color contrast)
• Slopes (a line chart with exactly 2 points in time, like pre and post)
• Small Multiples Lines (to combat the spaghetti line graph)
• Bumps (for rankings)
• Scatter plots (x and y)
• Bubble charts (x, y, and z)
• Tree maps (for nested categories)
• Heat Maps
• Sunbursts (nesting)
• Box and Whisker (to go beyond averages and show the min, quartile 1, median, quartile 3, and max)
• Waterfall (how pieces add to a net number)
• Radar (to compare several ordinal categories at once)
• Icons & Symbols (to make our graphs easier to navigate — and more memorable!)

Yes, These are Native Charts

Well… if you’re using the latest version of Excel.

If you’re on outdated software, (most of) these charts are still possible. They just get harder to make, i.e., they’re in Level 4 territory.

Yes, Underused Native Charts Add Variety (and Analytical Depth)

We’re not just adding variety for variety’s sake.

(Although common sense — and hundreds of consulting projects — has shown me that dataviz novelty is one of the best ways to increase engagement.)

Most importantly, we’re adding analytical depth. For example, a regular ol’ bar chart just compares the average or total of several categories. What if we compare them by location, too? Now we’ve got a heat map! We can spot geographical patterns, which would’ve been impossible in a bar chart.

Beware! Formatting Needed

Scatter plots are easy to make.

But we still have to:

• enlarge the font;
• darken the font (to pass official Accessibility rules for color contrast);
• add a key (that each dot represents one student);
• label the scales (with everyday language, like More skills gains, because scatter plots are notoriously difficult to read for people who don’t stare at graphs all the time); and
• decide whether to add a dark-light contrast.

Level 3: Non-Native Charts

Are you already using a variety of charts? Have you actually analyzed your data (beyond averages, and beyond totals)? Can you adjust the gap width, annotate the data, and apply colors strategically in your sleep?

Then you’re ready for Level 3!

With behind-the-scenes elbow grease, you can make:

• Stream Graphs
• Waffles
• B’Arcs
• Small Multiples Bars
• Population Pyramids
• Diverging Stacked Bars
• Lollipops
• Dots
• Swarm Plots
• Tile Grid Maps
• Sankey Diagrams

What are Non-Native Charts?

You won’t find any buttons that automatically make these charts.

Instead, we have to insert one chart type… and disguise it as something else.

For example, we have to insert a stacked bar chart… and disguise it as a waffle chart. You’ll need a Magic Table behind the scenes, too.

A stacked bar chart gets disguised as a population pyramid. Yes, you’ll need a Magic Table with placeholder values.

A scatter plot gets disguised as a dot plot, and so on. Each value gets assigned a x-y placeholder location inside the Magic Table.

Do these maneuvers turn your brain inside out and upside down? You’re not alone.

Learn More

If you’re consistently making, editing, and applying graphs from Level 3, you’re already a vizard. Get in touch so I can send work your way!

If you’re in Level 1 or 2, you’ll love Data Storytelling in Excel. You’ll go slow and steady so you don’t feel overwhelmed. You’ll dip your toe in… and then you’ll be swimming in the deep end in no time.

The post Which Graphs Can I Make in Excel? appeared first on Depict Data Studio.

In this video, you’ll see 3 examples of these intermediate cells, which give you full editing control over your graphs, maps, and tables.

What’s Inside

• 0:00 Intro
• 1:28 What are Helper Cells? Regular Table — Intermediate Table — Graph
• 1:57 Population Pyramid Example
• 5:04 Recoding Example
• 7:15 Map Example

Related Resources

• How to Make Population Pyramids in Excel
• Troubleshooting Excel Maps

The post What are Helper Cells? appeared first on Depict Data Studio.

(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.

The post How to Visualize Population Projections with Small Multiples Population Pyramids appeared first on Depict Data Studio.

—–

If you’re like me, you were probably inspired to revise some of your charts after reading Ann’s How to Visualize Age/Sex Patterns with Population Pyramids. Too often when I storyboard demographic information I default to separating out this demographic information (you know, for the sake of keeping things simple). Unfortunately, this is sometimes a missed opportunity to provide a more comprehensive picture. These things combined inspired me to recreate the Pyramid Chart in Tableau — Let’s get started!

The Data

The dataset we’ll be using is from the Arizona Office of Economic Opportunity, which you will see consists of age groups, sex (male/female), and population. If you receive disaggregated data, that wouldn’t be a problem — that’s Tableau’s specialty!

The Hack

We want to load our data source, review that our variables came in correctly, and add a new sheet. Next, we’ll drag two Population pills to Columns.

Now drag Age Group to Rows. You will want to click the arrow and uncheck Show Header.

To get our Age Groups in the middle, we need to hack Tableau a bit. Start by creating a Middle calculated field — all you’re doing is entering “0” and saving. Next, drag the Middle pill between your Populations. On the Marks Card, add Age Groups as a text item and change the type to text.

Okay, we’re making progress! Realizing our pyramid (or butterfly) is dabbing, we need to reverse the axis of our population on the left.

Note: You might need to sort Age Groups, as I did (see above where Under 5 years is after 85 years and over).

In order to highlight females on one side and males on the other, we need to create a couple calculated fields.

On the Marks Card, add Female as a text item to one population and Male to the other. Now we have the shape of something, but you probably noticed that the comparison is about as helpful as a table.

To change that, we’re going to get crafty with colors and create a calculated field for each. This will allow us to control the colors independent of one another while still maintaining the same x-axis (i.e. Population).

After creating your Female/Male Color calculated fields, you’ll want to drag them to their respective Color Marks Card. Next, edit the colors and be sure the “0” (i.e. the sex you don’t want to call out) is something very light.

Additional color tips: You’re better than basic — use something other than the default blue and orange Tableau gives you. You should also avoid using traditional blue and pink to represent male/female (this is 2018, after all!).

Our final steps will be cleaning up our visual. First, I want to get rid of unnecessary borders and lines across the entire sheet (they’re just a distraction). I would also hide my axes, as I have labels on my bars.

Speaking of the labels, I want to format (SUM)Female/(SUM)Male to be a nice round number and change my units to thousands (K). You should use your discretion when doing this but for the purpose of this chart, I know my readers aren’t actually distinguishing between 200,010 and 200,500.

Last but definitely not least, I want a descriptive title that pulls readers in. You’ll notice that I also leveraged colors in my title to differentiate between each side of the pyramid.

Bonus: You can go the extra mile and include some great information in your tooltips, too. Often, percentage of an entire population is a really important piece of information. The tooltip is a great way to provide that without adding distractions to the visualization.

The post How to Visualize Age/Sex Patterns with Population Pyramids in Tableau appeared first on Depict Data Studio.

The Dataset: An Ordinal Variable and a Categorical Variable

Our dataset looked something like this. We listed the age ranges down the first column and then recorded the number of males and females in the other columns.

Even if you don’t work in public health, you probably have similar datasets—an ordinal variable (like age ranges) along with a categorical variable (like sex).

Before: A Stacked Histogram

The “before” version of the public health agency’s graph looked like this. They had designed a stacked column chart with one column per age bracket.

After: A Cleaned-Up Stacked Histogram

For starters, we removed the axis titles. I rarely remove axis titles from written products like reports and handouts, but in this case, the speaker would physically be present to explain which variables were on each axis. And, the title makes the axes obvious—the axes literally show new diagnoses by age and sex.

On to the next few edits. Let’s continue deleting unnecessary ink.

We re-sized the graph a bit to fill the slide.

We re-sized the vertical scale (from 0 to 50 instead of from 0 to 60).

We continued decluttering the vertical scale by only labeling the starting and ending points (just 0 and 50). In a moment, we’re going to add values to each of the columns, which means we won’t need an overly-labeled scale.

We decided to label each column with the specific number of people who had the disease.

Then, we widened the columns so that the numeric labels were legible. You can follow my tutorial to reduce the Gap Width between the columns.

We outlined each of the columns in white to ensure that the different colors can still be distinguished from one another if someone prints our slideshow in grayscale. In other words, the white outlines around the blue and magenta rectangles make it easier to distinguish the shades of gray from one another.

We removed the gray line along the horizontal x-axis. It’s barely visible, but every bit counts.

Next, we removed the legend…

… and directly labeled the categories. The Males and Females words are just text boxes that we dragged over to the right side of the graph. The words are intentionally color-coded to match the graph (blue letters to match the blue section of the graph). You certainly don’t have to use blue for boys and pink for girls. In fact, your color scheme won’t look anything like this. I advise using your viewer’s color palette. For example, if you’re designing visualizations for the higher-ups within your own company, then use the colors from your own company’s logo and branding. If you’re a consultant who’s designing visualizations for your client, then use the colors from your client’s logo and branding.

Finally, shrink the age labels until they’re no longer twisted diagonally.

But, now the font is waaaaaay too tiny for a slidedeck (size 14—when I aim for 18+ in slides).

I’m satisfied with every detail of this makeover except the tiny age labels along the bottom. Which brings us to option 2…

After: A Population Pyramid

A second option for this dataset is a population pyramid, in which the age ranges are listed down the center of the graph and the distribution of males and females are displayed on each side.

The graph almost reminds me of a Rorschach ink blot. Or a butterfly. Or two regular ol’ histograms that are tilted on their sides.

Side note for the #DataNerds: Okay, so I don’t think that this particular graph is a population pyramid in the strictest sense of the term.

A traditional population pyramid would compare the number of people in each age range—the population of your city, state, or country–and their sex.

This population pyramid-esque visualization compares the number of diagnoses in each age group and their sex.

It’s the same general concept though—providing both a categorical variable and an ordinal variable together in one graph to compare distributions. If you have a better name for this specific dataset’s graph, let me know.

Stacked Histogram vs. Population Pyramid: You Be the Judge

Which approach is better, the stacked histogram or the population pyramid?

It depends.

The stacked histogram allows us to see the total number of people affected by the disease.

The population pyramid allows us to see the age distribution of people affected by the disease.

As always, your choice of graph type will depend entirely on the pattern that you’re trying to get across to your audience.

How to Make a Stacked Histogram in Excel

I know at least a million people are going to email me and ask me how to make these charts, so to avoid jamming my own inbox and banging Future Ann’s head against the wall, I’m going to share the how-to steps in Microsoft Excel here. I’m using the latest version of Excel on a PC, so your screen may look a little different than mine.

The first graph, which I’m calling a stacked histogram, is the easy one.

Type your numbers into a table like this one. Highlight just this section of the table (everything except the total column, which is optional, and added to the table just out of habit anyway).

Go to the Insert tab and click on the Stacked Column icon.

Then, make the cosmetic edits we talked about earlier, like decluttering the graph and adding labels to the columns.

How to Make a Population Pyramid in Excel

The second option, which I’m calling a population pyramid, is much more advanced. Excel Vizardry Level 10,000! Seriously. Once you make it through these steps, comment on the blog post and let me know. You deserve a virtual high five!

You can’t simply go to the Insert tab and click on the population pyramid icon because it doesn’t exist. That’s right. There’s no button that instantly creates a population pyramid for you. But you can create a population pyramid in Excel with my secret strategy.

The secret strategy is going to look crazy at first. This is a counter intuitive (yet amazing) strategy to fool Excel into making the exact chart you want. You’ll have to trust me for the next few minutes. All the pieces will fall into place and the final product will look great. I promise.

First, you’ll need to transform your Regular Table into a Magic Table. The Magic Table has a few placeholder columns with seemingly random numbers.

How do you know which numbers to type into the placeholder columns? Later, when you’re trying this with your own dataset, just scan your real numbers—like the number of males in Column C—for the biggest number in the batch. In this dataset, the biggest number was a 31. There were 31 males in the 35-39 age range with the disease. Then, choose a number a little bit bigger than the biggest number in the batch. The biggest number in the batch was a 31, so I rounded up and chose a 35. Make your placeholder numbers in Column B and your real numbers in Column C add up to 35.

Do the same thing for the number of females. The placeholder numbers and the real numbers should add to 35.

Yes, the columns are a little out of order. The placeholder space for the males goes to the left of the real numbers, and the placeholder space for the females goes to the right of the real numbers. That’s on purpose. It’ll make sense later. You have to trust me.

Then, add a third placeholder space down the center. You’re going to have to guess on which numbers to type into that column. That’s right. A total guess. I went with 7s after a few iterations of guess-and-check. Again, you have to trust me. This will make sense later.

I often add a “Total” column to check my own math. In this example, each row should add to 77 ( because 35 + 7 + 35 = 77).

You’ve got the Magic Table! Now it’s time to insert your chart.

Highlight the middle section of the table (everything except the age ranges and the total column).

Go to the Insert tab and choose a 100% Stacked Bar Chart. Not a regular stacked bar chart. Not a clustered bar chart. Not a column chart. You want a 100% Stacked Bar Chart.

Your chart will look totally busted.

But your population pyramid is there! Can you see it??

Adjust the colors to make the population pyramid pop. I made the placeholder spaces white or transparent. Ah, that’s much better. Can you see the population pyramid now??

Does the placeholder space make sense? If not, sleep on it, and then come back to this blog post again tomorrow. It will click. I promise. We used a stacked bar chart with “invisible” white segments and placeholder data to fool Excel into making a population pyramid. The placeholder values nudge the real numbers into their correct positions.

The rest of the edits are just cosmetic.

Re-size the graph as needed. I made the graph much larger so that it would fill a slide.

Get rid of all the unnecessary clutter. Delete the built-in title (I suggest writing titles directly into your Word document or adding a brand new text box into your PowerPoint slide). Delete the vertical axis labels (the 1 through 15 along the left side). Delete the horizontal axis labels (the 0% to 100% along the bottom). Delete the legend. Remove the vertical grid lines. Remove the border.

Widen the bars so that your histograms have that smoothed-out shape. I suggest a 10% Gap Width for histograms.

Add numeric labels to the bars. Click on the blue bars to activate them. Then, right-click and select Add Data Labels. Don’t forget to match the text to the graph, i.e., blue font for blue bars. Repeat the same steps for the magenta bars.

Here comes the fancy part—adding the age ranges down the center without having to painstakingly add fifty million individual text boxes.

Click on the center “bars” to activate them. Remember, there are invisible white segments of a stacked bar chart with a made-up size of 7.

Right-click and Add Data Labels to those invisible bars. By default, you’ll see the made-up 7s.

Click on the 7s to activate them. You’ll see little squares surrounding the 7s.

Right-click and select Format Data Labels. The Format Data Labels editing window will appear along the right-side of your screen.

If you’re on a super old version of Excel, then your Format Data Labels editing window will appear in the center of your screen, not on the right side. Bad news—your computer is so decrepit that you’re missing some pretty cool features, like the one we’re about to use. Time to upgrade. I purchase Office 365 for around $75/year and get Excel, Word, PowerPoint, etc. across several different devices.

Check out the Label Options section at the top. By default, your computer will display the Value, which is why we see the placeholder 7s.

Click on the Value from Cells checkbox. This little window pops up:

Scroll all the way to the top of your spreadsheet and find the original data table. Highlight the age ranges, like I’ve done here:

Click Okay on the little window. Scroll down and find your population pyramid again. Now, you’ll see both the age ranges and the placeholder 7s.

We have to get rid of the placeholder 7s. On the Format Data Labels menu at the right, simply un-check the Value box.

See how the age ranges fit juuuuust right down the center of my graph? I had to experiment with a few different values until I got the width just right. I tried a 5, a 10, and a 20. Every placeholder value will re-size the graph a bit. Sometimes that center space will be too narrow. Sometimes it will be too wide. Experiment until the wording for your labels fits the space well.

FINALLY… Label your categories. I went to the Insert tab and created two new text boxes for the word Males and Females. The words are intentionally color-coded to match their charts (i.e., blue text for a blue section of the chart).

Congrats, you made it! Don’t forget to comment on this blog post and let me know once you’ve created your own stacked histograms or population pyramids.

Bonus: Save Time & Download the Templates

Want to explore how I made the stacked histogram and population pyramid? Purchase my Excel file.

Purchase the template ($5)

The post How to Visualize Age/Sex Patterns with Population Pyramids in Microsoft Excel appeared first on Depict Data Studio.