What is Chart Junk?
Chart junk refers to all elements in charts and graphs that are not necessary to understand the information and do not add to the story represented on the graph. Chart junk also refers to elements of a chart that may distract the viewer from the key points.
Examples of chartjunk include (but are not limited to):
- Heavy Gridlines
- Unnecessary text
- Unnecessary colour
- 3D effects
- Icons
- Pictures
- Axis ticks
- Redundant labels
- Redundant titles
- Shading & gradients
Now that we know what chart junk is, let’s go down the list and remove all the junk from this chart!
Original:
First, let’s point out some of the potential issues!
- What’s the point of this chart?
- What are we supposed to focus on?
- What question does this chart answer?
- What are the names of the sub-categories?
So, how can we make this better?
- Add some color to highlight the main focus
- Specify the purpose of the chart in the title
- Label the axes properly if necessary, or remove titles entirely
- Rid of grid lines and other distracting and unnecessary details
- Make the sub-category labels fully visible
For example:
See if you can point out any additional changes we didn’t specify above!