David A. Heiser writes a very comprehensive essay titled Errors, Faults, and Fixes for Statistical Functions and Routines in Excel.

Concerning charts in Excel 2007, David writes "Building charts has completely changed, and their appearances also completely different. There is an increased ability to put in chartjunk’, lighting effects, shading, 3D renderings, flashy, distracting figures, silly variations, insertion of icons, visual distractions, etc. This is what the business world wants, the ability to insert effects to obscure, bias or just to add variety to frequent presentations."

Interesting. Something that I deal with all the time at work is the need to use 3D renderings and other worthless visual effects for presentations. When I object most people look at me like I've got two heads. Am I just wrong? Thoughts?

People have been brainwashed into thinking that the use of false 3D effects and related chartjunk is vital to making a good chart.

I had one client that contracted me to automate a set of charts for a large monthly report. The original charts were 3D with lots of garbage elements. I converted everything to 3D, adjusted the colors, and made 95% of the automation happen through worksheet formulas and helper series in the charts. 90% of the way through the project, one VP (of about 5 I was stuck dealing with) asked me “How much to change it all back?” I told him I wouldn’t, and I was sent packing.

John:

I am very glad that you have raised this issue. Data visualization writers like Tufte, Cleveland, Few all have stressed the need to eliminate chart junk, yet Microsoft continues to foster its use through 3D charts, stacked and clustered bar charts and stacked area charts.

Kaiser Fung’s Junkchart site (http://junkcharts.typepad.com/junk_charts/) is a great place to get ideas for good data visualization.

Juice Analytics (http://www.juiceanalytics.com/writing/) is another great site that is trying to stem the misuse of Excel charts.

Since many Excel chart users have never been exposed to data visualization principles, I’d like to see more focus on good data visualization practice on the Excel Chart Users Forum. When users ask about pie charts, stacked bar charts or two Y axis chart, it would be good to give them advice on both their specific question and why an alternative approach might be better from a data visualization standpoint.

I encourage you to keep writing about data visualization principles. User can get lost in slick Excel chart mechanics and actually hide useful data when they use the wrong graphic tool.

Among the three experts you cited, Stephen Few is the most approachable, and his books and web site examples are practical and down-to-earth. Charley Kyd has extended his works to Excel dashboarding techniques.

Books by Stephen and Charley:
http://peltiertech.com/Excel/xlbooks.html#Dashboard

Stephen’s Web Site:
http://perceptualedge.com

Charley’s Web Site:
http://exceluser.com