CHOOSING THE

RIGHT CHART
Choosing the Right Chart
Change over time
Showing a change over time for a measure is
one of the fundamental categories of
visualizations. There are many options for
exploring change over time, including line
charts, slope charts, and highlight tables.

To show change over time, you need to know

the value you expect to change, and how to
work with Date fields.

What kind of question does this chart answer?

•How has this measure changed in the past year?
•When did this measure change?
•How quickly has this measure changed?
Choosing the Right Chart
Correlation
Sometimes you have two variables and are looking
for the relationship between them. For example, you
may be looking for the relationship between
classroom size and school graduation rate, or how
much lung capacity relates to endurance.

Correlation can be shown with scatter plots or

highlight tables, and identify the strength of the
correlation.

What kind of question does this chart answer?

• Are these two measures related? How strongly?
• Are some measures more related than others?
• How strongly related are these measures?
Choosing the Right Chart
Magnitude
Magnitude shows the relative size or value of
two or more discrete items.

If you are comparing sales for different regions,

you are looking at magnitude.

Magnitude charts include bar charts, packed

bubble charts, and line charts.

What kind of question does this chart answer?

• Which of these dimension members has the
highest measure?
• Are there any exceptional dimensions?
• How large of a gap is there between the lowest
and highest measure between these dimensions?
Choosing the Right Chart
Deviation
Deviation charts show how far a value varies
from some baseline, such as the average or
median. If you wanted to know which items
had unusually high or low profit margins, you
would use a deviation chart.

You can use bullet charts, bar charts, and

combination charts to show deviation. You can
also find the statistical significance of the
deviation using a Z-score.

What kind of question does this chart answer?

• How far from the norm does this measure stray?
• How important are the deviations in this measure?
• Is there a pattern to the deviations?
Choosing the Right Chart
Distribution
When you are trying to find the frequency of
events within a population, you are looking at
the distribution. If you are showing the number
of respondents to a survey by age, or the
frequency of incoming calls by day, a
distribution chart might be the best choice.

Distribution charts include histograms,

population pyramids, Pareto charts, and box
plots.

What kind of question does this chart answer?

• Are events clustered around a certain probability?
• Which population group buys the most items?
• When are the busiest times in our work day?
Choosing the Right Chart
Ranking
Sometimes you not only want to depict the
magnitude of some value, but also the relative
ranking of all the members of your dimension.

Showing the top ten sales people or

demonstrating the under-performing states use
a ranking chart.

Ranking charts are usually bar charts that

integrate rank calculations, top n sets, or key
progress indicators.
What kind of question does this chart answer?
• How many people are under-performing in the
company?
• How much revenue is generated by our top ten
customers?
• What is the value of our ten lowest revenue
properties?
Choosing the Right Chart
Part to Whole
Part-to-Whole charts show how much of a
whole an individual part takes up. For example,
if you are showing how much each region
contributes to overall sales, or how expensive
each different shipping mode is for an
individual product, you would use a part to
whole chart.

Part-to-Whole charts can be pie charts, area

charts, stacked bar charts, or treemaps.

What kind of question does this chart answer?

• How much does this value contribute to the total?
• How does the distribution of costs change each
year?
• Do different items contribute different amounts to
sales by region?
Choosing the Right Chart
Spatial
Spatial charts can precise locations and
geographical patterns in your data. Showing
the airport terminals with the most foot traffic or
a map of all sales across the country are
examples of spatial maps.

Spatial maps include filled maps, point

distribution maps, symbol maps, and density
maps.

What kind of question does this chart answer?

• Which city has the highest sales?
• How far from distribution centers are our
customers?
• How many people arrive at which gate?
Choosing the Right Chart
Flow
Flow charts can be maps that convey
movement over time, such as Sankey
diagrams. Flow maps include path over time
and path between origin and destination
charts.

What kind of question does this chart answer?

• What is the longest shipping route?
• How long are people lingering around gates?
• What are the bottlenecks to traffic in the city?
 IDENTIFYING
BAD VISUALIZATION
BAD DATA VISUALIZATION:
5 EXAMPLES OF MISLEADING
DATA

1. Using the Wrong Type of

Chart or Graph
2. Including Too Many
Variables

Link: https://online.hbs.edu/blog/post/bad-data-visualization
BAD DATA VISUALIZATION:
5 EXAMPLES OF MISLEADING
DATA

3. Using inconsistent scale

Link: https://online.hbs.edu/blog/post/bad-data-visualization
BAD DATA VISUALIZATION:
5 EXAMPLES OF MISLEADING
DATA

4. Unclear Linear vs Logarithmic

Scaling

Link: https://online.hbs.edu/blog/post/bad-data-visualization
BAD DATA VISUALIZATION:
5 EXAMPLES OF MISLEADING
DATA

5. Poor Color Choices

• Using too many colors, making it difficult

for the reader to quickly understand what
they’re looking at
• Using familiar colors (for example, red and
green) in surprising ways
• Using colors with little contrast
• Not accounting for viewers who may be
colorblind

Link: https://online.hbs.edu/blog/post/bad-data-
visualization
A 3D Bar Chart
A pie chart that must be a bar chart
A continuous line chart for discrete
data
A misleading geography visual
A confusing graphic
 ACTIVITY
What’s gone wrong?
 Best Practices in
DATA VISUALIZATION
How to create GOOD
VISUALIZATIONS?
• Keep within the limitations of the screen
• Simplicity is a Key!
• Give context to data
• Avoid meaningless variety and misuse of colour
• Organize the data
• In practice use the F Pattern, important KPIs on top,
followed by charts, and then details
Bringing Good Reports into Dashboard
The first and most important consideration is your
target audience. Their preferences will guide every
other decision about your visualization—
the dissemination mode, the graph
type, the formatting, and more.

How this dashboard effect decisions? Most of the

dashboards are created to provide fast and
reliable insights to business leaders and experts.
Like for example, how this report helps in
identifying pain points in the business.

What is your message? Are you trying to

demonstrate a point, explain a concept, reassure
or convince an audience? Think about the
destination of your visualization.
Content Guiding Principles
General Approach
• Lead with headline to draw people in
• Drop all but the most important data
• Don’t use colour for decoration

Charts – present meaningful data

• Keep content as visual as possible, think infographics, not charts
• Two simple charts can be better than a single complex one
• Sort data meaningfully, either alphabetically or by value
• Keep axes subtle and data labels to a minimum to avoid visual clutter

Text – readability is key

• Ensure all text is large enough to read without zooming
• Avoid text running over other elements
7 MISTAKES TO AVOID
1. Starting off with too much complexity
2. Using metrics no one understands
3. Cluttering the dashboard with low-value graphics and unintelligible
widgets
4. Waiting for complex technology and big business intelligence
deployment projects
5. Underestimating the need to maintain the dashboard
6. Failing to match metrics to the goal
7. Using ineffective, poorly designed graphs and charts