The lollipop chart provides a short and sweet ending to the 60-Second Data Tip series, “How to Hack a Bar Chart.”
A lollipop chart is nothing more than thin bars with circles on top. So why go to the trouble? Well, if you have a lot of bars of similar length, you should not go to the trouble. The circles will just make comparing the lengths of the bars more difficult.
But the lollipop chart can be helpful when you have a bunch of bars of varying lengths, and you want to set them apart in a visually interesting way. Also, you can use those circle as labels, as in the example above.
Check out these easy instructions for making lollipop charts in Tableau and Excel.
And, before we leave bar chart hacks altogether, check out this wonderful animated bar chart showing the GDP of various countries over time. Watch China fall and rise! (And thanks to my friend, Harry Gottlieb, for sharing this chart with me.)
See other data tips in this series for more information on how to effectively visualize and make good use of your organization's data.
Icons created by Ben Davis, Dinosoft Labs, and andrewcaliber from Noun Project.