{"id":2457,"date":"2019-10-31T15:07:00","date_gmt":"2019-10-31T21:07:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.qimacros.com\/lean-six-sigma-blog\/?p=2457"},"modified":"2022-08-23T15:20:13","modified_gmt":"2022-08-23T21:20:13","slug":"when-are-bar-charts-dangerous","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.qimacros.com\/lean-six-sigma-blog\/when-are-bar-charts-dangerous\/","title":{"rendered":"When are bar charts dangerous?"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n<p>Answer: Almost always.<\/p>\r\n<ul>\r\n<li style=\"text-align: left;\"><em>When everything is presented in a bar chart, everything looks the same. And before long, everyone forgets what they\u2019re looking at.<\/em> Dan Roam<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n<p>Bar charts always remind me of a Jack-O-Lantern with bad teeth.<\/p>\r\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-2458\" src=\"https:\/\/www.qimacros.com\/lean-six-sigma-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/jackolantern.png\" alt=\"jackolantern\" width=\"165\" height=\"102\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.qimacros.com\/lean-six-sigma-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/jackolantern.png 165w, https:\/\/www.qimacros.com\/lean-six-sigma-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/jackolantern-115x71.png 115w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 165px) 100vw, 165px\" \/><\/p>\r\n<p>Bar charts are one of the most misused charts. The most common mistake is using bar charts for time-series data (i.e., dates):<\/p>\r\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-2459\" src=\"https:\/\/www.qimacros.com\/lean-six-sigma-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/barcharttimeseries.png\" alt=\"bar chart time series\" width=\"175\" height=\"154\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.qimacros.com\/lean-six-sigma-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/barcharttimeseries.png 175w, https:\/\/www.qimacros.com\/lean-six-sigma-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/barcharttimeseries-115x101.png 115w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 175px) 100vw, 175px\" \/><\/p>\r\n<p>Bar charts are best used for <em>categories<\/em>\u2014types of defects, objects, or whatever. Even so, the bars are often in a random order which makes distinguishing the important from the unimportant pretty difficult. Simply sorting the bars into a descending order makes them easier to analyze.<\/p>\r\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-2460\" src=\"https:\/\/www.qimacros.com\/lean-six-sigma-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sortedbarchart.png\" alt=\"sorted bar chart\" width=\"183\" height=\"117\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.qimacros.com\/lean-six-sigma-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sortedbarchart.png 183w, https:\/\/www.qimacros.com\/lean-six-sigma-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sortedbarchart-115x74.png 115w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 183px) 100vw, 183px\" \/><\/p>\r\n<p>This gives us the beginnings of a Pareto chart. Pareto charts are the key chart for optimizing any business process. Pareto charts identify the most common type of issue in the data. Pareto\u2019s principle says that 20% of any process will cause 80% of the defects, mistakes and errors. Pareto charts help simplify this analysis.<\/p>\r\n<p>If you\u2019ve ever tried to create a Pareto chart in Excel, you know how hard it can be. Fortunately, there\u2019s software that will automate this analysis for you.<\/p>\r\n<p>QI Macros\u2014an addin for Excel\u2014simplifies creation and analysis of control charts as well as many others.<\/p>\r\n<p>Which would you rather have: a dumb bar chart or a smart Pareto chart? Download a free 30-day trial at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.qimacros.com\">www.qimacros.com<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Answer: Almost always. When everything is presented in a bar chart, everything looks the same. And before long, everyone forgets what they&rsquo;re looking at. Dan Roam Bar charts always remind me of a Jack-O-Lantern with bad teeth. Bar charts are one of the most misused charts. The most common mistake is using bar charts for [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2457","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-jay-arthur-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.qimacros.com\/lean-six-sigma-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2457","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.qimacros.com\/lean-six-sigma-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.qimacros.com\/lean-six-sigma-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.qimacros.com\/lean-six-sigma-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.qimacros.com\/lean-six-sigma-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2457"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.qimacros.com\/lean-six-sigma-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2457\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5980,"href":"https:\/\/www.qimacros.com\/lean-six-sigma-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2457\/revisions\/5980"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.qimacros.com\/lean-six-sigma-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2457"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.qimacros.com\/lean-six-sigma-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2457"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.qimacros.com\/lean-six-sigma-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2457"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}