Framework

Chart critique checklist

The question it answers

Before an analyst puts a chart in a board report, what should they check so the chart tells the truth and lets readers compare what matters?

Origin
Tufte, 2001; Cleveland and McGill, 1984; Zacks and Tversky, 1999; Wong, 2011
Diagram type
Hub diagram
Level of analysis
Individual
Topics
Data & analyticsEthics & corporate governance
Magnifying lens over a line chart tile, icon for data and analytics

Diagram

Chart critique checklist

Honest chart
Data-ink ratio
Lie factor
Perceptual ranking
Bars versus lines
Colour accessibility
Context and annotation

Sources

References

Listed A–Z by author surname, Harvard style. A source with a DOI links to https://doi.org/…; one without links to its page or says plainly that it has no DOI.

  1. Cleveland, W.S. and McGill, R. (1984) ‘Graphical perception: theory, experimentation, and application to the development of graphical methods’, Journal of the American Statistical Association, 79(387), pp. 531–554.doi:10.1080/01621459.1984.10478080Source page
  2. Tufte, E.R. (2001) The visual display of quantitative information. Cheshire, CT: Graphics Press.No DOISource page
  3. Wong, B. (2011) ‘Points of view: color blindness’, Nature Methods, 8(6), p. 441.doi:10.1038/nmeth.1618Source page
  4. Zacks, J. and Tversky, B. (1999) ‘Bars and lines: a study of graphic communication’, Memory & Cognition, 27(6), pp. 1073–1079.doi:10.3758/BF03201236Source page