Graphs: Whats Good and Bad in Presentations

Jennifer Kaltenbach

Motivation

Explore what kind of graphs are most effective at conveying information. (Creative graphs are not always the best graphs.) Address how people may view the graphs. (Comprehension and level of importance.)

Examples

Why its bad: Its misleading as to which category sold the most (without reading the numbers). At first glance, the green section (clothing) seems to have the most sells, but its actually the blue section. A reader may remember the green section as being the biggest and it is shown that wayand base a decision off of it.

Situation

Graphs created in Excel are easy and convenient, but have some drawbacks. If defaults are used, the graphs purpose may not be fully be defined. When creating a graph in excel for use in a presentation or written documents, follow these easy guidelines to convey practical, useful and ethical graphs.
How to make it better: Rearrange how they are organized in the pyramid. The categories should be accessories, clothing, components and bikes (from top to bottom). Why its bad: There is too much information being displayed here. Text is illegible and bars arent visible.

Why these are good: These graphs have clear lables, start at 0 (-) and provide only the neccesary information. They are simple and clean and easy for the reader to understand.

Suggestions
Keep it Simple!
Nothing will help you lose your audience faster than a complicated, confusing graph. Especially for presentations, the audience will only have a few minutes to view the graph. If they cant comprehend what the graph is conveying in that time, its useless.

Why this works: This pie chart is obviously more complex, but it is still clean and understandable. The presentator only used two colors (with varying shades). This prevents the graph from being too busy, yet the shades are different enough that its easy to tell them apart.

Conclusion
Keep it Ethical!
Sometimes graphs can be misleading without the presenter even realizing it. To avoid this ethical issue, remember these two key factors: Start at 0ensure the graph x, y axis begins at 0, 0 and increments are equal and steady. This prevents the data from being presented in a way that skews the results. Avoid unusual shapesthis can also mislead a reader into interpreting the results a different way.

How to make it better: The idea of a 3-D graph to display a large amount of data is a good one, so a couple of changes can make this a more effective graph. Organize north, south, east and west so the all bar graphs can be seen. This means putting east first, followed by south, west and finally north. Also, simply move the numbers within the bar so they are legible and understandable.

Graphs should be useful and not distract from your presentation. Too often the presenter can get too focused in creating a graph that is eye-catching and creative but that isnt necessary. While the reader should remember informations about the graphs, it is more important that the information be accurate. Follow these guidelines to make your next presentation a success!
Example #1 Sourcehttp://peltiertech.com/WordPress/bad-graphics-funnel-chart/ Example #2 Source http://www.forbes.com/fdc/welcome_mjx.shtml Example #3 Sourcewww.google.com Example 4 Sourcehttp://www.census.gov

jenny@mealsplus.com www.mealsplus.com

4110 Shipyard Blvd., Wilmington, NC 28411