So.... 3rd day on my new job, my mgr wants me to do his presentation for the execs and VPs on Friday.

On Wired Magazine, they always have the neat graphs with the little pixels (or boxes) and the number of the boxes represents the % of the pie. What tool(s) do I need to make such graphs?

12/5/2007 10:29:06 AM

ibtl

12/5/2007 10:32:26 AM

Find a picture so we know what the hell you're talking about.

12/5/2007 10:37:13 AM

just go with the straight forward stuff...execs don't want a bunch of bullshit you have to explain to them how to read...pretty graphs might be cool for reading on the shitter, but just keep it professional for a presentation

12/5/2007 10:42:34 AM

bingo



office 2007 has a few good default templates, and makes fancy graphs easy though.



just remember, they've probably already seen all the templates that come standard in office2007.

12/5/2007 10:54:50 AM

^^ Are you kidding? Execs love needless eye candy.

12/5/2007 10:57:49 AM

there's a huge difference between a presentation that looks nice and a presentation that has a bunch of frilly ass shit and graphs that don't get right to the point

12/5/2007 11:43:12 AM

Office 2007 makes beautiful graphs and charts. The templates are very nice, but more importantly, it's easy to modify them and still keep them sharp looking
iWork Numbers does too, but i doubt that's an option.

ArsTechnica uses a program that creates nice-looking graphs from Excel.... i've forgotten what it's called - they've mentioned it before, but they use it all the time to make clean, readable charts like these





http://arstechnica.com/journals/apple.ars/2007/12/03/new-high-for-mac-market-share-in-november
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20071018-dell-staunches-the-market-share-bleeding-while-apple-sees-big-growth.html

Quote :

"pretty graphs might be cool for reading on the shitter, but just keep it professional for a presentation"

there is so much wrong with this thinking. A well designed graph is often the best way to illustrate data in a meaningful way, almost always better than just showing a table or bullet-points. And making a graph look good is not the same as eye-candy. A nicely formatted, easily readable chart with clean lines and bold colors does exude professionalism and competence. If I was an executive and some newbie engineer had an important presentation to give to me or to customers or investors, and he showed up with some Excel graph that looks like it was thrown together in 2 minutes and used that horrible Office 97-2003 default dull-gray background and those terrible default colors - blue, bright pink, and yellow - I would not be happy. It's not that it's needless eye-candy - it's that they show a lack of attention to detail and professionalism.

Personally? I use the Excel 2003 graph default all the time, when i'm just creating one-off graphs or using them for daily/weekly status updates or just sending to engineering colleagues. But if one of my graphs is going to be "enshrined" onto a shared presentation or shown to upper management, or anyone outside the company, I will make damned sure it looks good.

[Edited on December 5, 2007 at 11:58 AM. Reason : .]

12/5/2007 11:51:53 AM

Quote :

"that has a bunch of frilly ass shit and graphs that don't get right to the point"

that may be true, and it is very easy to go overboard on too many graphs or graphs that attempt to convey too much information, but it is also the case that very often 5 pages of numbers and text can be summarized on one graph that is easier and faster to read and comprehend on all levels.

12/5/2007 11:53:42 AM

Here is the pixel graph

http://www.wired.com/techbiz/it/magazine/15-08/st_infoporn

[Edited on December 5, 2007 at 12:02 PM. Reason : URL correction]

12/5/2007 11:58:43 AM

Edward Tufte is at the door. He's here to kick your ass.

12/5/2007 11:59:32 AM

^^"Illustration by Arno Ghelfi"

I don't believe there's an app that just spits that out.

12/5/2007 12:16:05 PM

I'm not sure whether to be impressed by the amount of information presented in that graph or appalled by the busyness of it. I suspect a bar graph might have been a better choice (2 bars per category, 1 for each year). I think the graphs agentlion has in his post might be a better example of what to try to do, and also a hell of a lot easier to make- at least for a presentation. For a print or electronic article, you get get away with more complicated or abstract looking charts since people have time to digest unfamiliar forms of data-presentation.

[Edited on December 5, 2007 at 12:26 PM. Reason : ]

12/5/2007 12:23:39 PM

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treemapping

the presentation is called a treemap

[Edited on December 5, 2007 at 12:25 PM. Reason : .]

12/5/2007 12:24:22 PM

it'd be nice to find a way to automate that kind of graph

12/5/2007 12:32:55 PM

besides, i highly recommend against something like that for a presentation. Thats a perfect example of going too far when its being presented on a screen or with powerpoint etc.

It is ok for a magazine, but not when people might be viewing it from a distance. There is WAY too much going on, and if someone isnt familiar with that type of graph, it might seem confusing for them to read.

Using graphs like agentlion posted are 10x more professional for a presntation to company executives. They want to see clear cut differences (easy contrasts) in the things being measured with easy to read numbers, and words. And frankly that 'treemapping' graph is the exact opposite of something I would want to be looking at.

In addition to that, even with all the 'fancy' stuff going on, that graph presents LESS information than say the "US PC marketshare" graph agentlion posted. Both graphs have a VERY similar scope: money spent on products at different set points and +/-. On the normal graph you can easily compare each company's 2005 market shares vs each other, each company's 2006 marketshares with each other, each company's yearly difference with each other, and its difference within each of the separate companies. In order to do that with the treemapping (say compare 1999 spending on internet access vs 1999 spending on VCRs, you have to search for them, then subtract their percentage from that block's total and them compare mentally - since their is no visual to compare those previous years.

[Edited on December 5, 2007 at 12:46 PM. Reason : ]

12/5/2007 12:40:26 PM

If you've got a Mac, Keynote makes purty graphs.

One nice thing about Keynote is that since most people aren't use to its built in templates, it looks more original than the stock Excel stuff.

[Edited on December 5, 2007 at 12:46 PM. Reason : ]

12/5/2007 12:45:16 PM

All this is not to say that you can't create nice looking graphs in Excel 97-03 if you put a little bit of time into it and don't just accept the defaults.

Here, again, is the chart from Ars Technica, using whatever program they used to generate it


i've transposed that data into Excel myself, and just using the bar-graph wizard in about 15 seconds and not changing any options, here is the default graph that is generated by Excel 03.
in short, UUUGGGGLLLYYYY



here's the same graph, using the same data, after about 3 minutes of TLC. Looks almost just like the one from Ars



And if you really spend some time with it, you can get some really cool looking graphs (using Excel 03 here). Experiment with high-contrast colors and gradients and stuff. Charts like this one (actually, better than this one because there are more color and palette options and more rounding/shape options) are one-click easy in Excel 07.



I would feel comfortable showing the 2nd or 3rd to an executive or to an external vendor or customer, but never the first one

12/5/2007 1:54:25 PM

Excellent!! that looks great. Will try the gradient stuff.

12/5/2007 3:23:34 PM

just checked back in and I have to say if I was an executive and you showed that box graph in a presentation to me, I'd stand up, slap you, and tell you to GTFO

12/5/2007 5:20:02 PM

you read it like a pie chart


it's really not that complicated.

12/5/2007 5:55:09 PM

It's a whole lot more effective than trying to read a table of numbers or read values off a bar graph.

12/5/2007 6:03:13 PM

it really all depends on the context. Graphs are meaningless without context, or at least criticisms of graphs are

If you're mutual-fund manager and you ask for a representation of how the tech industry fits into the overall consumer spending, and how segments of the tech industry are moving over the past 5 years, that graph is perfect.

However, if you're a mid-level manager at Verizon and you want to see how the wireless industry is doing year-over-year, then that graph is useless.

12/5/2007 6:21:34 PM

I'm trying to chart divisional IT spend for 2007. There are multiple business units (globally) that is in scope.

12/5/2007 6:35:15 PM

Use dark backgrounds on slides

12/5/2007 6:58:50 PM

^^ sounds like a bar chart or a stacked bar would accomplish that.

12/5/2007 7:21:00 PM

^^ depends on room lighting

12/5/2007 8:13:44 PM

Quote :

"you read it like a pie chart it's really not that complicated."

i didnt say it was hard to read, but it is HARDER/takes more effort in SO MANY ways and is just messy. I havent had one boss that would prefer that kind over a nice clean/sleek common graph.

12/5/2007 8:28:24 PM

Plus a lot of the details on it are far to small to be read by most people if you project it onto a standard screen.

12/5/2007 8:52:53 PM

I laughed so hard when I saw that wired graph. haha. Talk about over complicated the information at had. Bet the US government asked for it like that. They love bending the truth of the information a lot with crazy misleading graphs and charts.

12/5/2007 9:22:17 PM

Quote :

"I havent had one boss that would prefer that kind over a nice clean/sleek common graph."

context context context

if your boss was a hedge-fund manager with 40 years experience creating and analyzing charts just like this, he would love it

12/5/2007 10:57:47 PM

well he didnt say what kind of work he was doing, and I would guess the majority would prefer easier to read graphs. But youre right thats only based on my experience.

12/6/2007 9:02:27 AM

I mean something like this in a written report or article would be great and impressive- I just don't think it would work in a presentation, particularly because of the amount of small detail on the graph.

[Edited on December 6, 2007 at 11:54 AM. Reason : ]

12/6/2007 11:53:46 AM

yea thats exactly how i feel

12/6/2007 3:23:51 PM