Series palette — fixed order, never cycled
Slot 1 is the brand accent and slot 3 is the brand cyan, so charts stay on-brand. That substitution was not cosmetic — it raised worst-case colour-blind separation from ΔE 9.1 to 16.3. Under all-pairs forms (scatter, bubble, maps) only the first three slots clear the floors; slot 4 measures ΔE 13.7, below the 15 gate.
Grouped bars
Stacked bars
Horizontal bars
Horizontal bars — grouped
Horizontal bars — stacked
orientation="horizontal" for long category names and rankings. The
name sits above the bar and the figure at its end, so nothing is read off an axis — and on a phone
the names stay at reading size.
Lines
Stat with sparkline
Auditability
91%
Up 29 points this year
Open findings
21
Down 23 since September
One y-axis, always. A dual-axis chart invites a reader to compare two scales that were never comparable. Two measures of different magnitude want two charts, or an index to a common base.
Bars sit on zero. A magnitude axis that starts anywhere else makes a 3% gap look like 300%. Lines may start above zero, because a trend is about change.
Show table is not a nicety. Three of the eight series colours sit below 3:1 against a white surface — legal only with relief, and a real table is the relief. It also makes the figures copyable, which is what anyone assembling a deliverable actually wants.