1. Chart selection webinar
How To Choose The Right Chart For Your Audience
David Goldstein
President
Mekko Graphics
October 20, 2015

2. Last Week’s Customer Question…
Mr. Goldstein or Whom it May Concern, How to easily show taking market share away from competition over a set (i.e. 5 year) period of time? The example comes to mind when I tried to show this information in a 5-year strategic plan covering pure share gain. I ended up listing each customer’s CAGR, but it was still difficult to determine who/where we would be taking market share from. Regards,

3. And My Reply…
I would suggest trying a 100% stacked bar chart like the one attached.  You can see share change for each company and you can see the CAGR. 

4. Start by understanding what you’re trying to do.
Types of Charts
Start by understanding what you’re trying to do.
Track
Compare
Segment

5. Types of Questions Track Compare Segment
Often this is easier to assess if you think about the questions you’re trying to answer.
How do sales compare to previous periods?
How have earnings changed?
What has contributed to the change?
How does our retention rate compare to competitors?
What is the pricing for different brands?
Which economies are strongest?
What is our market share by channel?
Which product categories are the largest in the industry?
Who competes in our markets?
Track
Compare
Segment

6. How has revenue changed?
Add a growth line to show change over the time period and a CAGR column to show annual growth rate.

7. How are sales tracking vs. prior weeks?
Add enhancements like a target line or rolling average to give additional context.

8. How do sales compare to other products?
Use a line chart to emphasize overall trends. Adding the data row helps the audience understand how growth rates have changed.

9. What’s driving the change?
Use cascade charts to show how products or regions contributed to the change between the two time periods.

10. Which items had the biggest impact on cash flow?
Use a cascade to walk the audience through each step. Show positive contributions as green and negative as red.

11. Types of Questions Track Compare Segment
Often this is easier to assess if you think about the questions you’re trying to answer.
How do sales compare to previous periods?
How have earnings changed?
What has contributed to the change?
How does our retention rate compare to competitors?
What is the pricing for different brands?
Which economies are strongest?
What is our market share by channel?
Which product categories are the largest in the industry?
Who competes in our markets?
Track
Compare
Segment

12. How do our retention rates compare?
Use color to distinguish between business and consumer products or services and add an average line to highlight over and under performance.

13. Which product category has the biggest upside?
Use net lines to show current forecasted performance as a second series.

14. How does technology use vary by generation?
You can use a series of bar charts to show comparisons on different market research questions.

15. Where are labor costs the highest?
A bar mekko allows you to show a second metric, GDP in this case, to help the audience see the relative importance of each bar.

16. How do restaurant stocks compare?
Use a scatter chart to show performance on two key measures. Adding the regression line in this case helps make the point that the stocks above the line are priced at a premium.

17. Which countries have the highest consumption?
To add a third metric, use a bubble chart. If we did this as a scatter chart, we would miss the key insight that the largest markets by population have the lowest consumption volume.

18. Types of Questions Track Compare Segment
Often this is easier to assess if you think about the questions you’re trying to answer.
How do sales compare to previous periods?
How have earnings changed?
What has contributed to the change?
How does our retention rate compare to competitors?
What is the pricing for different brands?
Which economies are strongest?
What is our market share by channel?
Which product categories are the largest in the industry?
Who competes in our markets?
Track
Compare
Segment

19. What is our market share by channel?
Using two 100% stacked bars allows you to show market share for each channel and make comparisons between channels.

20. Where do we make money?
Use multiple 100% bars to show more than one metric. Add a data column to showcase data that supports your message. In this case, the most profitable market is declining.

21. How has the product mix evolved?
You can use 100% bars over time to show mix changes, in this case by price tier. Skip years to highlight the changes and add a CAGR column to reinforce the message that growth is in the highest and lowest price tiers.

22. How are profits distributed?
You can use the cascade chart to walk the audience through each segment and its relationship to the total.

23. Use the exploding bar to drill down on a particular cost category.
Where can we cut costs?
Use the exploding bar to drill down on a particular cost category.

24. What’s included in the $2+ Trillion IT industry?
The marimekko allows you to show an industry by category and segment. Notice that each category has different segments.

25. Who competes in the electric car market?
The marimekko allows you to show the market by competitor and product category. Notice that some competitors appear in multiple product categories.

26. Where are wine grapes grown?
A marimekko can be used to show a wide range of metrics, including costs, customers, or in this case, capacity by region and country.

27. Summary Track Compare Segment Key chart types
Bar, line, bar-line, area, cascade
Bar, bar mekko, scatter, bubble
100% stacked bar, cascade, marimekko
Key questions
How have sales, costs or profitability changed over time?
What are the components of that change?
How do I compare to competitors on price, cost or retention rate?
Which country has the highest labor cost, internet penetration, consumption or unemployment?
How did different groups respond to market research questions?
What is our market share by segment, profitability by product or cost by category?
Which product categories are the largest?
Who are the competitors in each market?

28. Resources
This slide deck and recording will be posted today and the link will be ed to all registrants
Slightly longer version of this deck in Chart Selection Toolkit:
Mekko Graphics Chart Gallery provides examples of many uses of our charts:
Chart of the Week Blog provides topical examples of Mekko Graphics charts:
Videos show how to produce different types of charts and how to use different product features:
For other questions or product feedback, me at