Excel is the Tool Everyone Has...So Use it Well!
Bill Shander
Author of "Stakeholder Whispering: Uncover What People Need Before Doing What They Ask", keynote speaker, workshop leader, LinkedIn Learning Instructor. Information design, data storytelling & visualization, creativity.
What is more ubiquitous than Microsoft Office? Probably the only software that is more common these days are web browsers. But those depend on platform - Chrome on Android, Safari on iOS, Edge on Windows, etc. So does everyone on Earth use, say, Safari? No. But everyone on Earth (pretty much...ish) does use Office.
So it's the data tool we all use. And it is, therefore, the data visualization tool we all use. In fact, for many, it's the only data tool in the tool belt.
I spend a lot of time teaching a variety of tools and tips and tricks in data analytics, data storytelling, and visualization. And sometimes I'm introducing or explaining different tools like D3, Carto, and Power BI. But it would be ridiculous to talk about data visualization without talking about Excel.
Lesson: Best practices in Excel
In this lesson, I share a few high level tips and tricks to think about when working in Excel, culminating with the best advice ever, which is simply "Google it" because, realistically, anything you want to do has already been done thousands of times and written about dozens of times. (This is a mathematical fact, not hyperbole!!) ;)
Listen: Stephanie Evergreen
Stephanie Evergreen is a data visualization practitioner and teacher and, among other things, she has focused a lot on visualizing data in Excel. She shares her experiences with this ubiquitous tool, including the idea that Excel is pretty "hackable" - you can force it to do things well beyond the defaults that are visibly available to users.
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Product Owner | Data Management | Data Visualisation | Data Science
3 年Great article (again) Bill. Stephanie Evergreen is right about Excel being very 'hackable'. I find that people quick to criticise it often haven't explored that.
Artisan Développeur Full Stack (Overflow) -- Ingénieur de recherche (mais pas d'emploi) #NotOpenToWork
3 年Please stop using excel ! Excel should be ban for any data analysis. People keep using it for things he's not designed to. It does a terrible job and is prone to lot of errors : https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/08/one-five-genetics-papers-contains-errors-thanks-microsoft-excel https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/oct/05/how-excel-may-have-caused-loss-of-16000-covid-tests-in-england https://www.zdnet.com/article/excel-errors-microsofts-spreadsheet-may-be-hazardous-to-your-health/
Early Childhood Educator at 91 Bellevue Ave St Stephen’s Community House
3 年Thank you very much for sending me your message. Good evening.