The Scenario
A junior analyst keeps defaulting to bar charts for everything. Their manager asks them to prove they understand when to use lines, bars, scatter plots, pie charts, and histograms by completing a short exercise.
The Brief
For each of the 5 datasets described below, choose the best chart type and write one sentence explaining why each of the other common chart types would be a worse choice.
Deliverables
- Dataset 1: Monthly revenue over 24 months — your chart choice and reasoning
- Dataset 2: Market share of 5 competitors — your chart choice and reasoning
- Dataset 3: Correlation between ad spend and conversions — your chart choice and reasoning
- Dataset 4: Distribution of employee salaries — your chart choice and reasoning
- Dataset 5: Sales by region (10 regions, single quarter) — your chart choice and reasoning
Submission Guidance
For each dataset, name the chart type first, then explain why it is better than at least 2 alternatives. "It looks nice" is not a reason.
Submit Your Work
Your submission is graded against the rubric on the right. If you pass, you get a public Badge URL you can share on LinkedIn. There is no draft save, so work offline first and paste your finished response here.