Comments on: Bandlines in XLCubed

By: xlcubedblog

xlcubedblog — Mon, 04 Feb 2013 09:13:49 +0000

Thanks for that – we’ve corrected our correction!

By: Jon Peltier

Jon Peltier — Sat, 02 Feb 2013 16:26:09 +0000

Not to be pedantic, but it’s customary that the first quartile is the lowest and the fourth the highest.

By: xlcubedblog

xlcubedblog — Fri, 01 Feb 2013 09:31:34 +0000

Hi Fabrice,

I think you may be referring to the normal bands (a colored band showing Standard Deviation or other data values), this is something that has also been in XLCubed Sparklines since the beginning. Bandlines are a new feature based on Stephen Few’s blog (http://www.perceptualedge.com/articles/visual_business_intelligence/introducing_bandlines.pdf) they show the Sparkline in context of several bands to show the value distribution.

Thanks

By: Fabrice Rimlinger

Fabrice Rimlinger — Thu, 31 Jan 2013 21:35:34 +0000

Good move. Not to steal your thunder, but Excel (free) add-in “sparklines for excel” (SfE) has this feature since 2008…
However, I prefered to use only one band in order not to overload the tiny chart. Stephen Few will certainly notice (some day) that vertical bands also have an interest… Cant wait to read his article…

By: Jim Wahl

Jim Wahl — Tue, 29 Jan 2013 14:12:01 +0000

Cool.

The dots confused me at first, since they represent high/low values. Few uses dots for outliers (values greater or less than 1.5 * midrange distance from 25th and 75th percentiles), which provide an additional level of context, particularly if all of the values fall in one band—the main benefit of bandlines over sparklines with just the IQR band.

By: xlcubedblog

xlcubedblog — Tue, 29 Jan 2013 09:46:30 +0000

Andy,
I think it depends on the data and the audience. In some cases the bands offer a lot more to analysts, and we’ve been really pleased by some customer feedback in market pricing situations. For sure vanilla Sparklines will always have a place too.

By: xlcubedblog

xlcubedblog — Tue, 29 Jan 2013 09:43:49 +0000

Jerzy,
Good spot – the legend for the coloured chart example was the wrong way round. It should be as you describe & matching the grayscale example. I’ve updated the blog to reflect that.

By: Jerzy

Jerzy — Mon, 28 Jan 2013 21:53:49 +0000

Nice! However, it’s a bit confusing that the legend is in the “wrong” order relative to the rest of the graph.
If light grey or red represents lower values than dark grey or blue, why not use put them lower in the legend too?

By: Andy Kriebel

Andy Kriebel — Mon, 28 Jan 2013 20:41:26 +0000

I think bandlines are visually distracting and increase the ink-to-data ratio beyond a reasonable amount. Sparklines alone are much better in my opinion.