Data visualization has become easier and easier with the advent of computers and increased access to data. Excel has been the default for crunching numbers across industries but there have been a few core data visualizations which have been missing. In Excel 2016, Microsoft has introduced six new graph types to help people get more done without leaving Excel.
These six chart types are very commonly used in statistical analysis like the box and whisker plot and histograms. Other commonly used charts are waterfall, Pareto, Treemap, and Sunburst, and these are all now available in Excel 2016. None of these chart types are particularly ground breaking or complex, but it they have been oddly missing from Excel for such a long time. To help walk people through the new chart types, Microsoft is breaking each one out for a blog post, currently they’ve only done the waterfall chart for now.
The waterfall chart is great for visualizing gains and losses alongside totals. The easiest way to demonstrate this can be seen in financial balance sheets. The waterfall chart separates gains and losses by color and by representing the bars as moving up or down from the previous bar. If you have created a new chart in Excel 2016, the chart can be viewed from the Excel mobile app on Windows, but nothing can be changed because the new chart comes in as a single object. Go grab the preview of Office 2016 and try out these data visualizations for yourself.
Further reading: Excel, Microsoft, Office 2016
