Some practical tutorials for creating concise charts for project summary reporting. At present, only focus on Line and Bar Charts. It might be extended in the future
I like going through project reports during the weekend. It is quite interesting to find that line and bar are the widely-used two types of charts. It also was found that most these charts were presented with too many redundant chart elements.
I once talked to some guys about simplifying charts (No suprise, most of them have a Sr. title). What can you imagine they say? They just shrug, and say I am not professional at visualization, and I do not know how to program using Python, bla bla, so I put all I know on the chart and I think the users can understand that.
In fact, they do not have to know too many programming skills, even using Excel, many people can plot fantastic and concise charts. Maybe, they just need some practical guidance or some will to change and learn.
I wrote three tutorials about how to create concise charts for reporting from a practical perspective. Certainly, it is only from my own experience; however, hope it is a little bit helpful for others.
For these tutorials, three most important principle just are
- DRY (do not repeat yourself),
- White spaces are not a enemy. They are your friends.
- Perfection is achieved. not when there is nothing left to add but when there is nothing left to take away ... (Antoine de St.Exupery. Wind, Sand, and Starts, 1939)
Learn by doing.