Graphs / Y axis / Left vs Right / visual helper
Hi All,
It's useful to create graphs with two different scales on the Y axis, we often display for example the % of CPU utilisation on the left Y axis and the number of PHP process on the right axis.
When you have two different units (int vs %) it is easy to see which scale relates to which side, even more so if we fix the % axis to 0-100.
If however we have no units, for example number of PHP process vs connections per second, which can be really different scales, it is hard to know at a glance which axis represents which line.
Now those of us familiar can work it out quite easily from correlating the last/min/max/avg values in legend, to the two Y axis and the colour of the item; but many end-users really struggle with this.
It becomes more difficult when you have more than two items, say 3 items on the left Y axis and 3 items on the right Y axis, especially when they are not grouped together.
How do people handle this? I've thought about using unbroken lines for left axis and dotted lines for right axis, but there is no legend to explain this. Same with using different (hot vs cold) colour groups.
Might there be some way to put [L] or [R] before the legend colour? Or use a triangle rather than square (like a circle is used for a trigger line) to show it is the right axis?
Apologies if I missed something, appreciate the input.
Carl
It's useful to create graphs with two different scales on the Y axis, we often display for example the % of CPU utilisation on the left Y axis and the number of PHP process on the right axis.
When you have two different units (int vs %) it is easy to see which scale relates to which side, even more so if we fix the % axis to 0-100.
If however we have no units, for example number of PHP process vs connections per second, which can be really different scales, it is hard to know at a glance which axis represents which line.
Now those of us familiar can work it out quite easily from correlating the last/min/max/avg values in legend, to the two Y axis and the colour of the item; but many end-users really struggle with this.
It becomes more difficult when you have more than two items, say 3 items on the left Y axis and 3 items on the right Y axis, especially when they are not grouped together.
How do people handle this? I've thought about using unbroken lines for left axis and dotted lines for right axis, but there is no legend to explain this. Same with using different (hot vs cold) colour groups.
Might there be some way to put [L] or [R] before the legend colour? Or use a triangle rather than square (like a circle is used for a trigger line) to show it is the right axis?
Apologies if I missed something, appreciate the input.
Carl
There are always those Captain Obvious types, who understand completely differently..
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