Long label handling for charts

Question

Currently I am showing horizontal bar chart where Y-axis is having very big (around 250 chars with minimum char size 20) label text. As this chart is taking 80% width of page, it is not looking good.

What chart type is recommended. Or any tips how I can handle this

Answer 1

I assume that the graphs relate to some automotive jobs, or actually the frequencies of them happening. I'd keep the bars as they are right now since we don't know the context and the usage of the graph (pure information, some analysis what can be improved, logistics/purchase hints, etc.).

I see two possibilities:

• The first one is to overlay the descriptions onto the bars themselves or keep them just above the respective bar. The advantage is that the full width of the screen is to be used for both the graph and the description. The disadvantage is that when overlayed, the bars might be somewhat obscured by the description. And by overlay I mean the following:

• the other possibility is to keep the descriptions on the left hand side of the graph, but group them somehow. This will shorten some of the longest descriptions but also allow to spot the most frequent job in each group, e.g.

  • brakes
    • replaced pads
    • bled system
  • engine
    • replaced spark plugs
    • replaced starter motor