Lollipop approach to clarify Microsoft Excel line charts
Traditional Microsoft Excel line charts have a common problem. It is hard to visually associate the data points with the horizontal axis. The traditional axis line is no help at all.
The data points are not clearly associated with the horizontal axis labels
We can get around this problem by using data markers. Certainly an improvement, but we still need to mentally drop imaginary lines between the points and the labels.
Use data markers to make the data points more prominient
My solution is to add 100% negative error bars for each data point. This removes any ambiguity between the data points and the axis labels. I call this the “Lollipop Approach” for line charts! The error bars may add additional weight to the chart, but they serve a useful function.
Error bars from each data point associates the relevant axis labels clearly
In a later post, I will show you a beautiful excel chart example using this lollipop approach.
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I like that a lot. It is only in recent times that I have seen and learnt about how useful error bars can be.
Thanks very much.
ASM
ps. Good looking blog. I will be adding to my list of regular visits.