Dueling with dual axes
Charts with dual axes can be a mixed blessing. Adding an additional axis can help with comparison purposes. Comparison is one of the essential tools of analyzing data. You can often hear it expressed in user questions, such as how does that figure compare to last year's? Or where are we in relation to our target?
On the other hand, dual axes are best used where the viewer really understands the data. They can be very misleading. For example, if we have units on one axis and currency on another, the chart can be hard to understand. Further, more if the axes are contracted whereby they don't start at zero, or only show a band of the data, then the naïve user may find it misleading. Normally, due to these issues, dual axes charts ...
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