Excel Video 126 is a quick look at two ways you can help users quickly focus on the critical information in a chart and draw appropriate conclusions. Today’s chart shows the year-to-date percentage of block time used by a practice. Let’s look at two ways to emphasize the point that Wednesday block utilization is way down.
We’ve played with hiding data or removing the fill from chart series before. Today we’ll take the fill out of all of the columns except the Wednesday column we want to emphasize. With Wednesday’s percentage as the only color in the chart, readers can quickly focus on the key information we want to convey.
Another way to emphasize the conclusion from a chart is instead of putting a generic chart title on the chart, like “YTD Block Utilization by Day of Week,” try “We’re not using our Wednesday block time!” In Excel Video 126, instead of using a chart title, I put the conclusion in a text box. Text boxes offer a lot more flexibility in terms of where they can be placed on a chart. By putting the conclusion right next to the data, it will be easy for readers to quickly focus and then act on the information we’re providing.
