Examples and Tips

Below are four typical but misguided attempts to present tables and graphs. See how a Plain Figures treatment transforms the data into coherent, unambiguous information.

1. PricewaterhouseCoopers: When not to use a bar chart.
2. KPMG: How not to design a table.
3. Royal Economic Society: How to make an exciting chart dull.
4. SQW (a London-based consultancy): The table of missed opportunity.

These examples are reproduced for the purposes of criticism and / or review under S.30(1) of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

Do you have examples of appalling, uncommunicative tables or graphs? Send them to us at: data-crime@plainfigures.com

If we like it enough to put it on our website, we'll send you a free copy of our book, Presenting Numbers, Tables and Charts published by Oxford University Press.