Most popular visualizations are popular for good reasons. Basic bar charts and line graphs are familiar, intuitive, and flexible and are thus widely used in data visualization. Other less basic visualizations such as bullet graphs and Pareto charts may not be something you use every day but are nonetheless useful additions to the data analyst's toolbox. In this section, we will explore ideas for how to tweak, extend, and even overhaul a few popular chart types.
Improving popular visualizations
Bullet graphs
The bullet graph was invented by Stephen Few and communicated publicly in 2006 through his book Information Dashboard Design: The Effective Visual Communication of Data. Stephen Few continues to be a strong voice in...