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I have a chart like the one pictured, with the following "tick intervals":
0, 1-10000,10001-20000,20000-30000 and 30000+

What is a consistent way of labeling the x-axis? I am not pleased with how the 0 and 1 are placed and expressed.

enter image description here

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1 Answer 1

It would be helpful to know more context about the data and the "story" you're trying to tell here for sure. Without more information to consider I may be missing something, but I'll take a shot... (Thanks for providing add'l info in comments)

In your example, the special space allotted for the range of values between 0 and 1 indicate they have some special significance. Again, without more context it is hard to say if that is needed, but if it isn't particularly important range of values, I suggest that you not highlight that range specially in order to give the range 0-10K the same significance as other ranges. Alternatively, if that range is so very important, then maybe it warrants two separate charts.

Update: Since we now know that the range is not that important but the values that are exactly zero are important, I would use color to highlight those. I have updated the mockup below.

I'd also consider using an abbreviation of the axis labels here because the vast majority of the "ink" on your labels are just zeros. So if you could, for example, replace "10 000" with "10K" and your audience would understand it equally well I would definitely do that.


download bmml source – Wireframes created with Balsamiq Mockups

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Thanks for your input. Yes, you are right: The "0" group really has a significant meaning which is what I want the labels to reflect. The data is from tax declarations. I want to clearly label the position of those who declare nothing. The other intervals are more homogenous, spanning 10k each. –  dani Sep 4 '12 at 14:08
@dani Thanks for the added info. I updated the mockup and suggestion a bit. Let me know what you think. –  activescott Sep 7 '12 at 4:02

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