With your sample data, it shows that you did a 25% increase each month in each area, but with real data the view would be more interesting.

So I’d happily use a stacked bar chart when the requirement was for an unstacked total bar, because that’s something the stacked bar is very good at: showing changes in the total.

But I’m with you about stacked bars when the primary mission is comparing the individual parts. They just don’t do that job very well.

A companion line chart comparing percentage of the whole vs time instead of value vs time could be insightful.

The offset stacked column chart might be my second choice. It is arguably more effective than the aligned stacked column, but it is still a trick to compare the bars that have different baselines. It is also possible that the tops of the individual bars in each stack unintentionally imply more of a trend than intended. This is shown in Stephen Few’s article Boxes of Insight. The bar chart looks like a steadily increasing trend, because the eye combines the female and male data without contrasting them. The box plot below it reverses the F/M order, and boxes each pair within salary ranges, and the F/M difference is glaringly obvious.

The first panel you show (“reach chart”) and the last (“trend”) are less effective than panel charts can be, since the different series have such different values.

Thanks for reviewing my product. I have worked hard to make it easy to use, because I want even CEOs to be able to use it

In the near future I hope to add an important feature that you hinted at: the ability to change the default formatting options for charts created by the Waterfall Chart Utility.

Thank you for your comment and sharing this information with the readers!

I don’t think you exaggerate all that much on the means. I may not always present standard deviation, but I always look at it to understand the data better. I think this has been a great discussion and hopefully opens people up to going beyond average/mean. Thanks again Derek!