Question

A retail analyst is building a horizontal bar chart showing total sales for 12 product categories. Stakeholders repeatedly ask, 'Which categories are our top and bottom performers?' The current chart lists categories in alphabetical order, making it hard to identify the leaders. What change best improves the chart's ability to answer the stakeholders' question?

Accepted Answer

Sort the bars in descending order by sales value so the highest and lowest performers are immediately visible

Answer

Convert the horizontal bar chart to a pie chart so relative share is easier to compare

Answer

Keep alphabetical order but apply a rainbow color scale to each bar to differentiate categories

Answer

Switch to a stacked bar chart combining all categories into a single bar