Bullet Chart

The Bullet graph is comprised of five main components:

Text label: The caption for your chart that describes what it is about and the unit of measurement.

Formatting Preferences: 

• Position Horizontally oriented graphs are on the left, and vertically oriented graphs are on the right.
• Color, orientation, and size are all important considerations. 100% black, horizontally orientated, and large enough to be read

Quantitative Scale: This section of the bullet graph appears and works just like the quantitative scale on a two-dimensional XY graph. It is made up of tick marks and text labels that define equal intervals of measurement along the bottom or top of the graph when it is oriented horizontally, or along the left or right of the graph when it is oriented vertically. The tick marks can be placed on the inner or outside boundary of the plot area. The quantitative range normally starts at zero, but it can start with a negative number if necessary, and it can also start at a value larger than zero if it is desirable to reduce the scale’s range to encourage a closer focus on the details.

Preferences for Formatting:

• Position On the bottom axis of a horizontally oriented graph; on the left axis of a vertically oriented graph. Tick marks should be placed around the outside of the plot.
• A wide range of values Begin from zero, or less if the quantitative range includes negative integers.
• For your tick mark, select a color and a stroke. With a faint grey brush stroke.
• Text label color, orientation, and size 100% black, horizontally oriented, and with a typeface small enough to fit along the scale without affecting readability

The Featured Measure: This section of the bullet graph contains the important data and should thus be aesthetically appealing prominent. It is usually represented as a bar, similar to the bar on a bar graph. The only one exception is when the quantitative scale begins with a number larger than zero; in this instance, the highlighted measure should be represented as a symbol, such as a dot or an X.

Formatting Preferences: 

• Position: The endpoint is aligned with its value along the quantitative scale and is centered in the plot area.
• Stroke and color: 100% black ink with a strong stroke weight
• The thickness: It is around one-third the thickness of its container.
• The border: None

Comparative Measure: These things should be less visually dominating than the main measure, but easily seen in relation to it. It should always be represented as a short line perpendicular to the graph’s orientation. When the highlighted measure intersects a comparative measure, the comparative measure should always display behind the featured measure.

Formatting Preferences:

• Placement: centered in the plot area and aligned with its numerical value along the scale
• Stroke and color: 100% black with a stroke that is evident but not as prominent as the main measure. When a second comparison measure is used, it should be 75% black.

Qualitative Scale: These ranges convey not only the qualitative condition of the highlighted measure, but also the extent to which it dwells within that state. For example, if the measure extends into the “excellent” range, the distance it goes into this range reflects how good it is. The number of qualitative ranges should be kept to a maximum of five, preferably three. More than five qualitative states would need a degree of perceptual thinking that would be inefficient for a dashboard. The range should be represented as fil-color rectangles behind end-to-end measurements that define the whole plot area of the graph.

Formatting Preferences:

• Use of color: Rather than utilizing multiple colors that colorblind people may not be able to detect, encode these ranges as distinct intensities from dark to light of a single hue. Use darker color intensities for bad states and lighter color intensities for good conditions. These intensities should be used for the following ranges:

Two: 35% and 10%, respectively.

Three: forty percent, twenty-five percent, and ten percent black

Four: fifty percent, thirty-five percent, twenty percent, and ten percent black

Five: fifty percent, thirty-five percent, twenty percent, ten percent, and three percent black

• The border: None