If we only looked at numeric statistics like mean and standard deviation, we might miss the fact that there were these two peaks that contributed to the overall statistics. There’s also a smaller hill whose peak (mode) at 13-14 hour range. We can see that the largest frequency of responses were in the 2-3 hour range, with a longer tail to the right than to the left. Each bar covers one hour of time, and the height indicates the number of tickets in each time range. The histogram above shows a frequency distribution for time to response for tickets sent into a fictional support system. Each bar typically covers a range of numeric values called a bin or class a bar’s height indicates the frequency of data points with a value within the corresponding bin. The top of each blue bar represents the mean points scored by each team and the black lines represent the standard deviation of points scored by each team.A histogram is a chart that plots the distribution of a numeric variable’s values as a series of bars. Once you click OK, the standard deviation lines will automatically be added to each individual bar:

In the new window that appears, choose the cell range I2:I4 for both the Positive Error Value and Negative Error Value: In the new panel that appears on the right side of the screen, click the icon called Error Bar Options, then click the Custom button under Error Amount, then click the Specify Value button:

To add the standard deviation values to each bar, click anywhere on the chart, then click the green plus (+) sign in the top right corner, then click Error Bars, then click More Options: The following bar chart will appear that shows the mean number of points scored by each team: Next, highlight the cell range H2:H4, then click the Insert tab, then click the icon called Clustered Column within the Charts group: Step 3: Plot the Mean and Standard Deviation for Each Group We then copy and pasted this formula down to each cell in column H and column I to calculate the mean and standard deviation for each team. Here are the formulas that we used to calculate the mean and standard deviation in each row: Next, we will calculate the mean and standard deviation for each team: Step 2: Calculate the Mean and Standard Deviation for Each Group Step 1: Enter the Dataįirst, let’s enter the following data that shows the points scored by various basketball players on three different teams: The following step-by-step example shows exactly how to do so. Often you may want to plot the mean and standard deviation for various groups of data in Excel, similar to the chart below:

How to plot a histogram in excel