This makeover shows how using color and position helps the audience compare common elements in two categories or data series.

1. FinancialViz Makeover:
Comparing common elements
using color and position

2. Original
Source: ROB Magazine May 2018 issue

3. Discussion of original visual
• This is a common misuse of donut or pie charts. A donut or pie chart should be
used to show one segment compared to the whole, not for comparing the values of
multiple segments.
• The segments in each donut are ordered by size. This means that the same sector
in the two donuts doesn’t necessarily have the same color. For example,
Financials is black in the top donut and gold in the bottom donut. This makes it
hard to compare the three sectors (plus Other) that are common to both donuts.
• The labelling of the sectors with long leader lines makes it hard to connect the
sector label to the segment of the donut.
• I think there are two messages that are important to communicate: 1) Comparing
the weighting of the common sectors, and 2) Identifying the sectors that are only in
one index.

4. 37.3%
15.2%
18.2%
11.7%
25.2%
13.8%
9.5%
10.2%
9.4%
19.7%
13.9%
16.0%
S&P/TSX
S&P 500
Energy
Materials
Technology
Health Care
Sectors common
to both indices
Sectors only in one index
Financials Industrials Consumer Other
Reflects significance
of resources in
Canadian economy
Reflects innovation
focus and privatized
health care in the US
Much more concentrated
banking sector
Makeover

5. Discussion of makeover visual
• I separated the two messages visually and added headings for each.
• I used bars to show the value of the common sectors and placed the bars in each
index above/below each other so it is easy to compare. These bars are created by
using a stacked bar chart, invisible spacer segments to line up the bars, and
gridlines to create baselines for each set of bars. The bars for each index are the
same color so it ties to the bars for the second message.
• The bars for the sectors that are only in one index are created on the same graph
as the first set of bars so the scale is consistent for all of the bars. The colors are
set to be consistent with the first set of bars.
• I added callouts to provide explanations of some of the important differences
between the indices.

6. Lessons
1. Use the correct visual for the message you are communicating
2. Use the same color for related data and the same order of
categories to make comparisons easier
3. Use multiple visuals for multiple messages