In the spirit of drawing inspiration from questions asked at workshops, I’ll pose one I recently received to you as this month’s challenge: when might you use a bullet graph?

A bullet graph is a variation of a bar chart, typically consisting of a primary bar (often thinner and in the forefront) layered on top of another bar or stack of bars to show progress against a target or series of thresholds.

Not everyone is familiar with this chart type—it is not a standard option in most graphing tools—so in my response, I drew a generic one like you see above. I described the bullet graph as a replacement for the speedometer-like gauges that were popular in early dashboards, but are notoriously difficult to read. Most commonly associated with author Stephen Few, bullet graphs leverage our familiarity with bar graphs to deliver a lot of information in a compact space.

While my answer centered on general applications, for this challenge we’d like to know specifically when you would use one—show us a great use case for the bullet chart.

The challenge

Find some data of interest that will lend itself well and build a bullet graph. If you need help getting started, check out this list of publicly available data sources. You’re also welcome to use a real work example if you can anonymize appropriately.

Share your creation in the SWD community by November 30th at 5PM ET. If there is any specific feedback or input that you would find helpful, include that detail in your commentary. Take some time also to browse others’ submissions, too, and share your input via comments and datapoints over the course of the month.

Related resources

Here are a few related resources. If you are aware of other good ones, please share in your submission commentary.

SWD guest post by Bill Dean: the bullet graph (includes Excel step-by-step)
How to Make Bullet Graphs in Tableau by Ryan Sleeper
Jon Schwabish’s One Chart At A Time: Gauge and Bullet Charts with Youyou Zhou
Bullet Graph Design Specification by Stephen Few
Bullet Graphs for Not-to-Exceed Targets by Stephen Few

We’re looking forward to bountiful bullet graphs this month!