Which Kind Of Graph Is Better For Percentage Data

How practice you selection the right nautical chart or graph for your data?

If yous take data y'all want to visualize, make certain you lot use the right charts. While your data might work with multiple chart types, it's up to yous to select the ane that ensures your bulletin is clear and accurate. Remember, data is only valuable if you know how to visualize it and requite context.

Nosotros'll give you an overview of the different chart types and explicate how to option the right ane.

What story does your information tell?

Before making a chart it'south important to empathise why y'all need i. Charts, maps, and infographics help people understand complicated data, detect patterns, identify trends, and tell a story. Think about the message you want to share with your audience.

Follow best charting practices. Your numbers demand to add up and charts demand to exist scaled accordingly. What would you similar to show? In that location are four main types of charts:

select chart type

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Comparison

Comparison charts are used to compare one or more datasets. They can compare items or show differences over time.

Human relationship

Relationship charts are used to show a connection or correlation betwixt 2 or more variables.

Composition

Composition charts are used to display parts of a whole and change over time.

Distribution

Distribution charts are used to show how variables are distributed over fourth dimension, helping place outliers and trends.

Selecting the right chart type

Enquire yourself how many variables exercise y'all want to show, how many information points you lot want to display and how you want to calibration your axis.

Line, bar and column charts represent modify over fourth dimension. Pyramids and pie charts display parts-of-a-whole. While scatter plots and treemaps are helpful if y'all take a lot of data to visualize.

Types of Charts

Line Charts

line chart examples

A line chart reveals trends or change over time. Line charts can be used to prove relationships inside a continuous information fix, and tin can be applied to a broad diverseness of categories, including daily number of visitors to a site or variations in stock prices.

Best practices for creating line charts:

Clearly label your axes - Brand certain the viewer knows what they are evaluating.
Remove distracting nautical chart elements - Grids, varying colors, and bulky legends can distract the viewer from quickly seeing the overall tendency.
Zoom in on the y-axis if your data prepare starts higher up cypher - In sure cases, changing the scale of the y axis makes it easier for.
Avoid comparing more v-seven lines - You don't desire your chart to become cluttered or hard to read. Visualize the information you need to tell your story, nix more.

Pie Charts

pie chart example

The pie chart is one of the most used and hated chart types of all time. Pie charts are used to prove parts of a whole. A pie chart represents numbers in percentages, and the total sum of all the divided segments equals 100 percent.

All-time practices for creating pie charts:

Brand sure your segments add upwards to 100 - Sounds obvious, but this is a mutual error.
Go on information technology clean and consequent. Compare just a few categories to get your signal beyond. If the pie slices have roughly the same size, consider to use a bar or column nautical chart instead.
Avoid using 3-D imagery or tilt your pie nautical chart - This oft makes your data incommunicable to read, considering your viewer is trying to apace compare angles.

Bar Charts and Column Charts

column chart

Bar and column charts are used to compare different items. Confined on a cavalcade chart are vertical while bars on a bar chart are horizontal. Bar charts are generally used to assistance avoid clutter when one data characterization is long or if you have more than 10 items to compare. They are piece of cake to understand and to create.

Best practices for creating bar and cavalcade charts:

Start the y-axis at nothing - Our eyes are sensitive to the area of bars on a chart. If those bars are truncated, the viewer might describe the wrong conclusions.
Characterization the axes - Labelling the axes gives your viewer context.
Put value labels on bars - This helps to preserve the clean lines of the bar lengths.
Avert using too many colors "rainbow upshot". Using a single color, or varying shades of the aforementioned color, is a much amend exercise. You can highlight one bar in item if that is the message you want to get across.

Treemap

Treemaps show parts of a whole. They brandish hierarchical information as a cluster of rectangles varying in size and color, depending on their data value. The size of each rectangle represents a quantity, while the colour can represent a number value or a category.

Treemaps let you to view trends and make comparisons quickly – specially if i color is specially prominent. While spreadsheets can evidence multiple rows of information, treemaps can accommodate hundreds of thousands of items in one organized brandish, making it easy to spot patterns in seconds. Plus, if made correctly, they make very efficient apply of infinite.

All-time practices for creating a Treemap

Start with clean data and a clear bulletin - Treemaps can often involve a lot of information, then it'due south important to know exactly what you want to highlight.
Use bright, contrasting colors and so each region is easily de ned - But, recollect to avoid the 'rainbow due east ect.' Choose your colors wisely.
Label each region appropriately with text or numbers - is makes it easier for the viewer to evaluate your treemap speedily, without fault.
Avoid clutter your treemap with too many boxes - Treemaps tin contain whatsoever number of boxes, just space is limited! You don't want your treemap to be hard to read.

Dual Axis Chart

With a dual axis chart you are essentially combining multiple charts and calculation a second y-axis for comparing. Some members of the data visualization customs are skeptical about the use of dual axis charts considering they can often exist confusing, poorly designed, and misleading to the viewer.

Permit'due south go over the different types of dual axis charts and the best means to use them:

Column and Line Chart– This dual axis nautical chart combines a column chart with a line chart.

Dual Line Chart – This dual axis chart compares two line charts. There can be more than two lines if need be.

Dual Cavalcade Nautical chart– This dual axis cavalcade chart shows two sets of data displayed side past side.

Multiple Axes Chart – This displays the most circuitous version of the dual axis chart. Here you lot see three sets of information – with iii y-axes.

Area Chart

Area charts are a lot like line charts, with a few subtle differences. They tin can both show change over time, overall trends, and continuity beyond a dataset. But, while area charts may function the same way every bit line charts, the space between the line and axis is filled in, indicating volume.

Best practices for creating Area charts

Make it piece of cake to read - Avoid occlusion. This happens when i or more layers covers important information on the chart.
Apply a stacked area chart - If y'all take multiple data sets and want to emphasize part-to-whole relationships.
Use expanse charts to await at the bigger picture - Take population for instance: Line charts are adept for showing net change in population over time, while area charts are good for showing the total population over time.

Avoid comparing besides many datasets. Apply instead a line chart, its cleaner.
Give the proper context with appropriate labels and legends.

Pyramid Chart

pyramid chart example

Pyramid charts (triangle chart or triangle diagram) are a fun fashion to visualize foundation based relationships. ey appear in the course of a triangle that has been divided into horizontal sections with categories labeled co-ordinate to their hierarchy. They can be oriented up or down depending on the relationships they stand for. The stacked layers can also show the lodge of steps in a particular process.

All-time practices for creating Pyramid Charts

Pick a topic and clearly label your subcategories - Decide what information you want to convey with your pyramid and conspicuously characterization your layers.
Organize your subcategories - Decide the order and value of each section on your pyramid.
Organize the subcategories based on their hierarchy.
Exist consistent - Go on the spacing of your sections even and selection a pleasing color palette.
Go on subcategories to a minimum. Adding many layers and colors can make your pyramid hard to read.

Word Cloud

word cloud example

Word clouds (also known every bit tag clouds) are a type of weighted list. Word clouds display text in varying font sizes, weight, or colors to show frequencies or categories. They can exist arranged alphabetically or at random. They assist people identify trends and patterns that might have been difficult to see otherwise.

All-time practices for creating a Word Cloud

Provide context - Word clouds are visually eye-catching and provide data near frequency but they oftentimes don't give the viewer any context.
Use word clouds to show frequency - Avoid using them to display complex topics similar the upkeep or healthcare crunch.
Lookout man your word length - Longer words take up more space and can be misleading.
Word clouds are dandy for filtering and analyzing data.
Avoid making your words too similar in size or color.

Tables

table

Tables display data in rows and columns. Tables make it like shooting fish in a barrel to compare pairs of related values or to display qualitative information (east.1000. quarterly sales over several years).

There are multiple reasons you might select a table over a graph, equally the right way to visualize your data.

Best practices for creating reporting tables

Ask yourself how your tabular array will be used and ascertain your audience.
Consider removing filigree lines to increase readability.
Always include the source(s) of your data
Numbers should be aligned to the right, considering it makes easier to compare. Text tin can be aligned left, but you might prefer to center it for readability.
Use color or formatting to draw the viewer to specific values (cells) in your table.