excel basics day 5: visualize that data

Communicating lots of data in an easy to read visual, is in my opinion, pretty important stuff. Especially since your audience doesn’t care and wants information, not necessarily raw data.

We will keep this visual fairly basic and straight to the point.

It is a simple line chart with multiple overlaid data-sets. We came to the conclusion who was the most townie, but how does it compare? What does that even mean? Watch this to find out..

Video Breakdown

4 seconds: INSERT tab under Chart, ‘Insert Line Chart’.

• This is a pretty simple step, but yields great results! Make sure you have your data selected. We can get crazy and change chart types and make unique visualizations, but that will be for another day.

10 seconds: Filter

• This is a handy feature. In the DATA tab, you click ‘Filter’. This will allow you to sort, segment, and play with data more freely! It will be reflected on the graph too.

15 seconds: Data Labels

• When you select and right click on a data series, a menu will pop-up. Go down to Add Data Labels and you’re all set!

20 seconds: Design

• In the ribbon there will be a bunch of preset designs. You can also manually change colors of each element but this makes it really quick! We will be getting into more dynamic visualizations later on.