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Bullet Chart Maker

Show each KPI as a bar against its target, on bands that say whether the result is poor, fair or good. Upload a spreadsheet and publish a compact scorecard. It's free.

Créer un Bullet Chart (gratuit)Voir la galerie

Qu’est-ce qu’un Bullet Chart ?

A bullet chart is a bar chart redesigned to replace the dashboard gauge. Each row is one measure: a bar shows the actual value, a short vertical tick marks the target, and shaded bands behind the bar mark qualitative ranges such as poor, satisfactory and good. Because it is a straight horizontal bar, ten KPIs fit in the space one round gauge would take, and the reader can see at a glance both how far the bar got and how that compares with the goal. Stephen Few designed the form to be read quickly and to carry as much meaning as possible in as little space.

Quand utiliser un Bullet Chart

  • You are reporting against targets

    Revenue against plan, tickets closed against goal, uptime against the SLA. The target tick sits right on the bar, so the comparison needs no arithmetic.

  • You have a scorecard of several KPIs

    A column of bullets stays readable at ten or twenty rows, where the same number of gauges would be a wall of dials.

  • The measures use different units

    Each row can be scaled on its own, so a margin in percent and revenue in thousands share one chart without the small one vanishing.

  • Context matters more than the raw number

    The bands tell the reader whether 82 is a good result or a worrying one, without a legend of thresholds.

Quand éviter un Bullet Chart

  • You only have one number and no target

    Without a target or ranges a bullet chart is just a bar. A plain bar chart says the same thing more simply.

  • You are showing change over time

    A bullet shows one moment per KPI. Use a line or area chart for a trend.

  • You are comparing two points per category

    Before and after, or two years side by side, is what a dumbbell chart is for.

  • Your audience has never seen one

    The form rewards a one-line explanation. For a general audience, add a note under the chart saying what the tick and bands mean.

Comment créer un Bullet Chart

D’un tableur à un graphique publié, étape par étape.

  1. 01Open the Bullet Chart template
  2. 02Prepare one row per KPI
  3. 03Upload or connect your data
  4. 04Choose the scale mode
  5. 05Style the bar, target and bands
  6. 06Publish or export
Lire le guide complet du Bullet Chart

Les éléments d’un Bullet Chart

Measure bar
The thick bar showing the actual value for the KPI.
Target tick
A short vertical line across the bar marking the goal.
Qualitative bands
Shaded ranges behind the bar, darkest nearest zero, marking poor, satisfactory and good.
KPI label
The name of the measure at the start of each row, shrunk to fit before it is ever dropped.
Value label
The actual number, inside or just past the bar, that steps around the target tick rather than colliding with it.
Value axis
Ticks and gridlines on a shared scale. Hidden in per-row mode, where one position means a different value on every row.

Erreurs courantes avec un Bullet Chart

Entering band widths instead of upper bounds

Each band column is the upper limit of that band, measured from zero. Bands nest inside one another, so they are thresholds, not widths.

Using a shared scale for mixed units

One axis for revenue and a margin in percent turns the small measure into an invisible sliver. Use the per-row scale.

Reading across rows on per-row scales

With separate scales the same bar length means different values on different rows. Compare each bar with its own target, not with the bar above.

Too many bands

Three bands is plenty. More shades make the background compete with the bar.

Bullet Chart : questions fréquentes

Comparing a measured value with a target and with performance ranges, usually for a KPI scorecard or dashboard.

Créez votre Bullet Chart maintenant

Gratuit pour commencer, avec plus de 300 modèles. Sans carte bancaire.

Créer un Bullet Chart (gratuit)Tous les types de graphiques