Book 5 · Work Math

Chart Check

Paste the numbers behind a chart and see them drawn twice — once on an axis that starts at zero, and once on the truncated axis a presenter would choose. The bars change dramatically. The data does not.

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Enter some values and press Draw both charts.
From the book — Chapter 5. A bar chart is only honest if the axis starts at zero. Cut the axis and a 5% difference can be made to look like a doubling. Before you trust any chart, ask five things: what do the axes represent; does the y-axis start at zero; what is the time period; are the intervals evenly spaced; and is anything missing or cherry-picked. A chart that hides its axis is a chart that is hiding something.

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