Excel Chart Tamer
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We are about to release a new product we developed with Stephen Few that helps business users create better charts with Excel:
An Add-In Product Designed to Tame Excel’s Charts
No other software comes close to Microsoft Excel in popularity for analyzing and presenting quantitative information. The charts in Excel, however, which provide Excel’s visual analysis and presentation functionality, are inadequate and poorly designed. This problem has actually been magnified with the release of Excel 2007, which adds superficial dazzle to charts that undermines their ability to display data effectively. Chart Tamer is an add-in product that will combine the data visualization expertise of Stephen Few of Perceptual Edge with the product development expertise of BonaVista Systems to conform Excel’s charts to the best practices of data visualization.
Chart Tamer will do the following:
Limit the library of chart types to those that really work, thereby reducing the complexity of choosing appropriate charts
- Revise the formatting defaults of the charts to present data clearly
- Restrict chart formatting options to those that really work
- Revise the color palette to encourage the effective use of color in charts
- Provide a new interface for selecting the appropriate chart type, which will guide the user to an effective choice based on the nature of the data and purpose of the chart
Chart Tamer will work with all versions of Excel from Excel 2000 on.
We expect to have a public beta available late October.
Posted September 3rd, 2008 by Francisco under Charts.
Comments: 15
Comments
Comment from Tim Mayes
Time: September 3, 2008, 1:12 pm
This sounds excellent. Regarding the “new interface for selecting the appropriate chart type,” it will be interesting to see how it compares to Office Lab’s new Chart Advisor. Or, am I misunderstanding that feature?
Comment from Andreas
Time: September 5, 2008, 3:00 am
Tim,
Microsoft Chart Advisor chart selecting process is based on an automated approach. A rule engine scans your data and calculates a score based on the rules and a so called popularity index. I have my doubts that such a full automated approach will help users selecting the appropriate chart type. Charts that are popular but not effective, like the pie chart, will get a high score.
Chart Tamer is flowing a different philosophy, respecting Alan Coopers rule “Imagine users as very intelligent but very busy.” Chart Tamer asks you some questions about the relationship you want to display and how you want to emphasize your data. Finally Chart Tamer offers you a selection of charts that makes sense in this context.
I wrote on “Chart Rules, As Simple as Possible, But Not Any Simpler!” about some of the basic steps of the chart selection process.
http://blog.xlcubed.com/chart-rules-as-simple-as-possible-but-not-any-simpler/
Regards,
Andreas
Comment from jerome cukier
Time: September 5, 2008, 3:52 am
I am very much looking forward to this.
The chart advisor approach is flawed. you can NOT find the best way to represent a dataset by analysing the data, because graphs don’t illustrate data, they represent stories.
to make a good graph, you must first know what you want to show and to highlight in a dataset. that’s the “story” layer, which can’t be automated.
once you know what you want to show, the execution of the graph can be streamlined though.
Comment from Tim Mayes
Time: September 5, 2008, 2:06 pm
Andreas, thanks. I agree that Chart Advisor is too automated, and Jerome made a good point on that as well. I’ve got a post on my blog about Chart Advisor and one of my main complaints was that its suggestions didn’t match very well with my expectations, and also that it drops some of the data series.
Sounds like Chart Tamer will be much better in that regard because of the interview. I’m really looking forward to seeing it.
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Time: September 11, 2008, 6:36 am
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Time: September 23, 2008, 10:59 pm
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Comment from Govert Vissers
Time: November 10, 2008, 1:52 pm
Any news about the Chart Tamer add-in?
I can’t wait!
Govert Vissers
Comment from Andreas
Time: November 11, 2008, 1:09 am
Govert,
We are a bit behind the schedule but hope to have a public preview ready in Nov
Andreas
Comment from Larry Logan
Time: November 22, 2008, 12:25 pm
Please let me know when Chart Tamer is available to purchase.
Comment from Govert
Time: December 22, 2008, 8:15 am
Any news yet? When do you think the add-in is available?
Comment from Andreas
Time: December 22, 2008, 11:50 am
Larry, Govert,
We are a bit behind the schedule. Chart Tamer will be available in January
Regards,
Andreas
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