Alex Velez cleans up a line chart:
When sharing a makeover, typically I’ll show a side-by-side “before” and “after” view. This is a powerful moment for many audiences as they witness the dramatic impact of an effective graph. I share this with you, because until recently if a combination chart was found within my makeovers it represented the “before” state. That’s because most combo charts are hard to read, so I tend to revise them into something simpler—like this makeover.
Today’s article shows the inverse of that process, where, in order to make a visual more informative and easier to understand, I chose to transform the original, a “simple” line chart, into a more “complicated” combination chart.
This is a good reminder that visuals themselves aren’t necessarily bad (except for the pie chart, which is inherently evil and don’t try to convince me otherwise); it’s all about whether the specific chart makes sense given the story you are trying to tell.