This
chart, is from The Economist. It compares the use of clean energy, mainly solar energy, in different countries around the world. The countries/regions included and compared in this chart are China, United States, Europe, and the rest of the world. One of the strengths of this chart is that it is a bar chart. This makes this chart easy to read. However, there are too many bars in this chart, which may make it confusing for some people, because it gives this chart a crowded appearance. The different colours represent the different countries listed in the legend. However, the many bars and colours make the chart appear too clustered. The creator of this chart shouldn't have included so many years. However, the numbers do start at zero, which is one another strength of this chart. Unfortunately the creator did not specify what the numbers on the right mean. It signifies an amount of solar power used, but not the exact measurements, which can also be confusing for readers.
In my opinion, if the creator wanted to improve the appearance of this chart, the main issue they should focus on is the cluster of bars sprawled on the chart. Also, the countries are difficult to compare in the years 2004 and 2005, because they are so small. It would have been better to simply remove the other bars, and lessen the amount of years listed in the chart. It is understandable that the creator would like to compare the past years to the present, however, this amount of bars makes this chart extremely crowded. All in all, using a bar chart instead of a pie chart, or line chart is the main strengths of this chart. Since there is so much information listed, it would be even more confusing if this chart was anything other than a bar chart.
