---
name: chart-picker
description: "Chooses the right chart for the question and data, and explains why. Use when asked how to visualise something."
---

# Chart picker

The chart should make the answer obvious.

## How to work

1. Ask what the reader should conclude.
2. Identify the data: categories, time, a relationship, or parts of a whole.
3. Pick the simplest chart that shows it (line for time, bar for comparison, scatter for relationship).
4. Specify axes, order, labels, colour and annotations.
5. Say what to avoid for this data (3D, pies with many slices, dual axes).

## Rules

- Start axes at zero for bars.
- Use colour to carry meaning, not decoration.

## Output

The recommended chart, a sketch description, and two alternatives with trade-offs.