To ask for help? Boring data/graphs/tables question!

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I’ve collected quite a big data sample and I’ve sorted it from smallest to largest and then picked out the 5 smallest ‘values’, if that makes sense.

I’m not sure what is the clearest way of presenting the data selection of the smallest values though, because they are taken from a period of several years (5 years) and all of the categories are different. I don’t think a graph or a table would be suitable.

I’ve attached a photo to give a made-up example of the data I’ve collected, in case that helps.

Can anyone help please with suggesting the best way to present this? Thanks!

It depends where you want the emphasis.
Stacked bar chart by year is most common, sorted from largest in first year.
Bubble chart might also work.

What are you trying to represent? Why the 5 smallest?

Thanks GRex! I’m trying to find out and emphasise which chocolate brands sold the least each year, if that makes sense. Is there a way to show this just by using the data I included in the attached photo on my OP?

@Noodledoodledoo I’m trying to find out and emphasise which chocolate brands sold the least each year.

Feed it into ChatGPT ....

Your data is categoric. Therefore, a bar chart 📊 is needed.

You need the data sorted into year groups. Then a stacked bar for each year I would say

Are you confident about your category definition(s)?

How are you defining 'chocolate brands'? Your data here seems to be conflating two things (type of chocolate bar and brand).

I know you've said that this is made-up data, but I'd be a bit concerned that your real data is accurately categorised prior to experimenting with presentation.

Would you be better of averaging across the 5 years first and then just having one bar chart? Is there a reason to show each of the five years separately?

Pie chart in shades of grey with the smallest sellers highlighted in colour.

There's some guidance on chart types etc. here which might be useful: analysisfunction.civilservice.gov.uk/policy-store/data-visualisation-charts/#section-3

You can't do a pie chart - that is for when something adds up to 100% and this isn't even % its numbers. I would do 5 mini bar charts on one slide, one for each year. Then if you have the same chocolate bar in different years you could colour code them

Beyond the fact that this is what you want to show, my question would be why you want to show them, so as to choose the best presentation.

I would probably consider different options if the years were to be viewed in isolation, than I would if I wanted to show the evolution over five years and any increase/decline of specific bars in that period that could be attributed to specific campaigns, for example.