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7 Basic Rules for Making Charts and Graphs

By Nathan Yau - Jul 22, 2010 - Data Design Tips - Post on Twitter

Charts and graphs have found their way into news, presentations, and comics, with users from art to
design to statistics. The design principles for these data graphics will vary depending on what you're
using it for. Making something for a presentation? You'll want to keep it extremely simple and avoid
using a lot of text. Designing a graphic for a newspaper? You'll have to deal with size constraints and
try to explain the important parts of your graphic.

However, whatever you're making your charts and graphs for, whether it be for a report, an
infographic online, or a piece of data art, there are a few basic rules that you should follow.

There's wiggle room with all of them, and you should think of what follows as more of a framework
than a hard set of rules, but this is a good place to start for those just getting into data graphics.

Check the data

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This should be obvious. Data forms the foundation of charts and graphs. If your data is weak, your
graph is weak, so make sure it makes sense. Start with some simple graphs to see if there are any
outliers or weird spikes. Verify anything that doesn't make sense. You might be surprised how many
data entry typos you find in the spreadsheets people send you.

Explain encodings

Maybe you use a color scale to indicate magnitude or the size of a square to represent values. Maybe
it's a combination of both. Explain what these encodings are supposed to indicate, and don't assume
the reader knows what everything means. Most likely he doesn't.

You can provide explanations in a variety of ways, but the most common are providing a legend,
directly labeling shapes, or describing your graphic in a lead-in paragraph.

Without your pointers, it's a guessing game for the reader.

Label axes

Oh look, what fine gridlines you have there. Without labels or any explanation, they're just decoration.
Label your axes so that readers know what scale points are plotted on. Is it logarithmic, incremental,
exponential, or per 100 flushing toilets? Without axis labels, I always assume it's that last one. Also, in
most cases, you'll want your value axis to start at zero.

Include units

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Include some units while you're at it. If you just leave it with naked numbers, it could mean anything
from a percentage, to a volume, to the number of chickens that crossed the road. Again, you want to
eliminate the need for any guesswork from the reader.

Keep your geometry in check

If your geometry is wrong, this will be the first thing people call you on, especially if you use bubble
size to indicate a numeric value, so you better get it right. You'll also probably have the pleasure of
seeing your work highlighted negatively on some nerdy blog.

Here's how it works. Size circles and other two-dimensional shapes by area, unless it's a bar graph or
something like that. When you size circles by diameter, you end up with circles that are way out of
proportion, and that's a bad thing.

Include your sources

This should go without saying. Always include where the data is from. You can put it directly in a
graphic, or if it's part of an article, the source can be specified in the copy. This does a couple of
things. First, it makes your graphic more reputable, and second, those who are interested can dig
deeper or fact check.

Consider your audience

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Finally, like I said already, take into account who and what your graphs and charts are for, and design
accordingly. You might design a graphic to be super-detailed for a poster that people can stare at for
hours. But if it's for a presentation, you should keep the words to a minimum.

You should probably also avoid Comic Sans, but that's your call.

In the end, all of these rules can be broken for specific cases, and you'll learn where you can bend with
practice. By no means are these rules absolute.

To put it simply: tell your story clearly and communicate the data accurately. Do that, and you'll be
alright.

Subscribe to the RSS feed or follow @flowingdata on Twitter to stay updated on what's new in data
visualization and infographics. Because it's awesome.

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24 Comments (Add Yours)

JanWillem Tulp

Good tips, and nicely illustrated!

July 22, 2010 at 12:31 am | Reply

Chrisvdberge

Great tips, don’t forget the ‘choose the right format’ though. There are to many bar charts that
should be lines or columns and vice versa.

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July 22, 2010 at 12:42 am | Reply

Tim Kent

Great Post – only one i would add is “compared to what?” Try to always consider the context:
“Sales were up 99%” – “compared to what?”. Answer might be “vs Last Year”, “vs Forecast” or
“vs Northern region” etc a good chart should answer this

July 22, 2010 at 1:20 am | Reply

John Munoz

Tim Kent,

Absolutely, 100% agree with you on that one. Context gives graphs the ability to reveal
insights.

Nathan, great post!

Some rules I think worth mentioning (and which I see violated quite a bit are) are:
Bar charts should have an axis with a zero baseline.

If you’re charting categorical data on a bar chart, it’s usually best to put the categories on
the Y axis so that your readers don’t have to struggle to read the categories.

Stay away from 3D, it’s great in real life, but on the computer screen it makes your
graphs more difficult to read than “standard” graphs.

July 22, 2010 at 4:53 am | Reply

Nathan Yau

Thanks, John. I wouldn’t say stay away from 3D all the time, but yeah, in a
business setting, it’s typically a bad idea.

July 22, 2010 at 11:25 am

Kaizer

Nice. This has become a pearl on my pearltree! :)

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July 22, 2010 at 1:57 am | Reply

Noah Iliinsky

Nathan,

This is a great list. You inspired me to (finally) post my short list of how to create good
information visuals over at O’Reilly Answers.

For an even deeper look at the design process of information visuals, check out my master’s
thesis on this very topic.

Cheers, Noah

July 22, 2010 at 2:03 am | Reply

Nathan Yau

@Noah – nice!

July 22, 2010 at 11:21 am | Reply

Rusha Sams

Very clear tips for creating better charts and graphs. Would love to see more people thinking
like this, especially when they embed charts into PPt. (Sooooo hard to read ‘em sometimes!)

July 22, 2010 at 4:28 am | Reply

Jonathan Miller

Great clarity – love this post (as well as all of your content). Edward Tufte would be proud. He
once said (and I am paraphrasing) that a chart without a source reference is a lie.

July 22, 2010 at 5:23 am | Reply

Gail P

It may seem obvious to those who read graphs easily (not me) but I would also appreciate

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having a frame of reference to compare results to. What is the average or last years results? And
even with these in front of me I will struggle to fully comprehend the graph. If you tell me it’s
from a total of 100, I can see it as %. Or if you say that last year the score was 25 and now it’s
20, I can see a decline.

July 22, 2010 at 5:29 am | Reply

Annie Pettit

Absolutely love the illustrations! Unique and memorable!

July 22, 2010 at 6:09 am | Reply

Nathan Yau

@Annie – I’m glad you like them :)

July 22, 2010 at 11:22 am | Reply

Traei

From an individual that has used charts and graphs for years in the field of accounting, you
bring up excellent points here. This is clear and succinct. I would encourage all statistic profs to
incorporate this into their beginning stats courses and make it a requirement for all business
courses.

I wish this was presented to me years ago at the beginning. Thanks for your profound words on
this important topic.

July 22, 2010 at 7:11 am | Reply

Andrew Begin

Love the fundamental nature of this. It should be read by anybody before starting a chart or
infographic. Bookmarked.

July 22, 2010 at 9:47 am | Reply

Chris

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“Size circles and other two-dimensional shapes by area, unless it’s a bar graph or something
like that.”

Um … that’s either wrong or just very poorly worded. Bar graphs should be sized by area as
well. That may be equivalent to sizing by height, but if there’s ever a difference between sizing
a bar chart by height or by area, area should win. That’s not what you’re saying there with the
word “unless”.

July 22, 2010 at 10:24 am | Reply

gabyu

Instant ⌘P then displayed to the team. Thanks for the nice lesson

July 22, 2010 at 6:51 pm | Reply

Nathan Yau

@gabyu – glad it was helpful!

July 22, 2010 at 9:34 pm | Reply

Links to this post

“7 Basic Rules for Making Charts and Graphs” | Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day...
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VizThink Blog » Blog Archive » VizLinks | Visual Thinking Bookmarks for July 22nd
7 Basic Rules for Making Charts and Graphs | joelotz.net
7 Basic Rules for Making Charts and Graphs « The IT Blog

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