Using Bar Charts to Illustrate Item Comparisons
Bar charts are perfect for comparing items. Bar charts offer a few advantages over column
charts for comparing sales of various items:
■ People tend to associate column charts—or any other chart in which the data pro-
gresses from left to right—as having a time-based component. When you turn the
columns on their sides and make them horizontal bars, people tend not to read time
into the equation.
■ With a column chart, the category names can appear in a horizontal orientation, giving
plenty of room for longer names. In the chart shown in Figure 4.1, for example, the
category names take almost half the chart, ...