Numbers tell stories, but we need to pay attention to the details. In this article, we will not talk about types of graphs and the elements that make up each one of them (we will leave some additional readings at the end). The goal here is to make it possible for you to interpret any type of graph and avoid analysis errors in practice.
In this article you will see:
The first step to interpreting a graph: Attention
Subtitles not explained correctly
Subtitles explained correctly
The second step to interpreting a graph: Context
The number of tests makes a big difference
The numbers show the generalized national situation
Each country goes through different stages
The third step to interpreting a graph: Provoke
How can I spread this culture in my company?
We are conditioned and inclined to analyze and interpret graphs and tables in our daily lives, even if unnoticed. Some of these are calendars, packaging labels, food nutritional tables, medicine leaflets, bills and electricity, gas, internet bills, among other formats that make us analyze and understand results and data critically so that we can draw our own conclusions and, depending on them, make honduras phone number data our projections and future plans. It is worth noting that the difficulty is not limited to the stage of analyzing a graph, but there are also difficulties (even for data and marketing professionals) in the previous stages, more precisely in measuring and collecting data.
The first step to interpreting a graph: Attention!
Pay attention and read the titles and captions carefully so that your conclusion is not biased.
To make the topic clearer, we will provide some real examples where the graph (because it is not constructed properly) can make it difficult or impossible for the reader to clearly understand.
The idea here is to train your eye for errors, so when you read a (properly correct) graph you will pay attention to these details.
Subtitles not explained correctly
It is possible to observe that the vertical axis starts on the graph at the value 60,000. This feature of stopping the scale at the beginning of the vertical axis, quite popular in the press, is commonly used when the lowest value observed in the data series is significantly greater than zero.
In these cases, the large extension of the scale on the vertical axis causes a useless space between the graph line and the horizontal axis.
The aim is to eliminate this useless space, both for the sake of simplification and saving space on the graph, and by giving greater focus to the interval in which the data is presented.
Subtitles explained correctly
In the example below, we have the appropriate use of the line graph, with the captions that give us an idea of comparison, in this case, the public buyers of real estate in the United States. We also have the information on the X axis (in this case, it is the average age of the public buyers of real estate in the United States) and the Y axis (which shows the results from 2002 to 2016).
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