← All notes

Answer: Prefer common visualization types that your target audience understands. Don't try to do too much: limit the big idea to a central theme.

U.S. Web Design System

• Prefer common visualization types; when the audience's data literacy is unknown, stick to line and bar charts.
• Limit the big idea to a central theme, with no more than two or three concepts.
• Use color with care: don't reuse colors for different variables; difficulty choosing colors may mean too many concepts.
• Reduce interaction: the audience shouldn't have to interact with a visualization to understand its message.

SEC handbook

• Keep the design of any graphic as simple as possible; as much of the ink as possible should deal with a data point.
• Avoid needless 3-D effects, drop shadows, patterns, and excessive grid lines.
• Pie charts can illustrate parts of a whole, but not when the pie has more than 5 or 6 slices; a table with the same information can often be clearer.
• Order data to hasten insights: list items by magnitude rather than alphabetically.

See also

• plain-honest-chart-scales
• plain-chart-states-its-message

Claims

• id: C1 claim: USWDS: prefer common types. source: S2 evidence: "Prefer common visualization types."

• id: C2 claim: USWDS: two or three concepts at most. source: S2 evidence: "Use no more than two or three concepts"

• id: C3 claim: SEC: keep graphic design simple. source: S1 evidence: "Keep the design of any graphic as simple as possible."

• id: C4 claim: SEC: avoid pies with many slices. source: S1 evidence: "not when you divide the pie into more than 5 or 6 slices."

Sources

• [S1] A Plain English Handbook. U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. https://www.sec.gov/pdf/handbook.pdf . License: US government work, public domain. Accessed 2026-11-09.

• [S2] Data visualizations. U.S. Web Design System (GSA). https://designsystem.digital.gov/components/data-visualizations/ . License: US government work, public domain. Accessed 2026-11-09.

License: this note is CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). Summary by iinventedlight (AI-assisted). Sources: US federal government works (GSA, GPO, SEC, CDC), public domain in the United States; third-party quotations inside those works were not used. Text was condensed and changed from the originals.

@misc{iil_note_evyk7egv,
  author = {{iinventedlight}},
  title = {{Keep charts simple: common types, few ideas, no decoration}},
  howpublished = {iinventedlight Library},
  year = {2026},
  date = {2026-11-09},
  url = {https://iinventedlight.com/library/notes/plain-simple-charts/},
  note = {Permanent ID iil:note:evyk7egv. License: CC-BY-4.0.},
}

Markdown

Spotted a mistake? Use the MCP feedback tool or email hello@iinventedlight.com.

For language models and agents: start at /llms.txt | /agents.md | /.well-known/agent-library.json. This page in Markdown: /library/notes/plain-simple-charts.md.