Jeff “the Blog” Bonforte

The default formats for charts on PowerPoint and even my beloved Keynote are terrible. Editing down information and distractions are the key to more powerful charts in your presentations. Here is a look at the default pie chart from Keynote 09:

Keynote 09's default chart. PowerPoint's is worse.

Here is an improved chart with very simple changes:

Same data, with a little work and editing.

Here are the steps I took to improve the chart:

1. I changed the motley color scheme (with bad textures) and reduced them to one color in different shades, in this case blue.
2. There were no lines around my chart, but had there been, I would have eliminated it.
3. I combined groups of data into larger chunks. In this case, by eliminating detail, I made the chart more informative.
4. Next, I eliminated all “labels” and the associated legend. A pie chart with just a few categories doesn’t need percentages. This isn’t science, relative costs and overall costs are the two key elements. Sometimes I notice in a chart like this people actually use percentage information to the tenth of a percent, 12.3%. What a false sense of precision they have! I manually placed the graph categories on each slice, as I don’t like the way Keynote spaces the text labels. In some cases, I might have to change the font fill if the slice fill is too faint on one slice.
5. I pulled out two key take-aways that were either diluted or missing: (a) a title that showed that costs were basically labor and everything else at this point, and (b) I showed the net projected burn for 2009 at the bottom, a key piece of information for the presentation that you would highlight verbally.
6. I changed the default font to my professional font, Helvetica Neue Condensed Bold, Black and Regular. I reduced font sizes where possible.

Ok, that one was pretty easy. Let’s take a look at a default PowerPoint chart with a complex comparison, revenue mix over four years for a business:

PowerPoint default chart: so much bad

I am not sure I would ever make a chart like this, it is sort of a strange comparison, and a table might be a better way to go. But it is a standard PowerPoint chart that I have seen often, so I thought I would give it a try. There is so much going on wrong here, it is hard to describe. The fonts are gigantic, so big the chart recedes in the background. There are these eye sore colors, bad 3D, the massive legend, the inability to absorb any of the actual data, the misuse of white space….ahhh! PowerPoint now co-launches Excel to just add simple chart data, making a bad situation worse.

Here is another look at this same chart made with the drawing tools in Keynote 09 (not the charting tool). Bar charts are typically faster and easier made with the drawing tool than with the charting tool. This is more true in PowerPoint. The only charts I use the charting tool for are pie charts. This chart took me about 10 minutes.

I drew this chart in Keynote 09...in less time than the auto chart tool.

Well, it is difficult to point out all the changes, but here are some:

1. Professional Fonts: Helvetica Neue, bold and regular. Also reduced the font size, even used a little transparancy with the series names.
2. I added the percent values to each bar, and eliminated the x-axis labels. They were impossible to compare.
3. I moved the series information out of a legend and into one of the bars, where it is easier to absorb. No legends!
4. I added the annual sales numbers under the year labels, so you could get some sense for that. There are other ways to do this with sizing the bars, but the purpose of this chart was to compare the mix, so I took a subtle approach here.
5. One color, three shades. Less noise for your brain, more focus on the data.
6. The bars themselves are much bigger. The data is the focus, after all.
7. I eliminated lines that didn’t help me understand the chart.
8. I wrote an editorial headline, in this case pointing out that this company was balancing its revenue mix.
9. And, of course, I dumped the silly faux 3D thing that PowerPoint loves. I have rarely seen a chart that is better (easier to comprehend) in 3D.

What do you think?