Charts provide a visual of data and allow you to quickly provide information relating to trends and comparisons in an easy to digest way. Before adding a chart, explore the options below to discover which Chart Type is for you.
Line Charts
A Line Chart reveals trends or changes over time. They can be used to show relationships within a continuous data set, and can be applied to a wide variety of categories, such as website visits or stock prices.
Example
Best Practice
Clearly label your axes to help your visitors know what they are viewing.
Remove any distracting chart elements, such as bulky legends, which can distract the visitor from quickly seeing the overall trend.
Avoid comparing more than 5-7 variables - you don't want your chart to become cluttered or hard to read.
Turn on 'Tooltips' to enable your visitors to view multiple data sets easily.
Area Charts
Area Charts are a lot like Line Charts, but with a few subtle differences. They can both show change over time, overall trends, and continuity across a dataset, but while Area Charts may function the same way as Line Charts, the space between the line and axis is filled in, indicating volume.
Example
Best Practice
Avoid obstruction - this happens when one or more layers cover important information on the chart.
Use Area Charts to look at the bigger picture, and avoid comparing too many variables - use a line chart instead as it appears cleaner.
Bar/Horizontal/Stacked Charts
Bar Charts organise the chart data using bars (or columns) of different lengths. This type of chart is used to compare categories of data and are easy to understand.
Variations of a standard Bar Chart include a Horizontal or Stacked Bar Chart. A Horizontal Bar Chart displays the chart data in horizontal bars rather than vertical, and Stacked Bar Charts usually use a series of bars stacked on top of one another, to compare total values across categories. For example, the number of different products sold each month.
Example
Select image to enlarge
Best Practice
Clearly label your axes to help your visitors know what they are viewing.
Use no more than 4 different variables to avoid cluttering the chart.
Pie & Doughnut Charts
A Pie Chart is circular and made up of sections or 'slices'. The data is presented in percentages and the total sum of all the divided slices equal 100 percent. They’re easy to understand and provide an immediate visual representation of the data
A variation of a standard Pie Chart is a Doughnut Chart. The data is presented in the same way, however the design is slightly different as the chart has a hole in the middle (hence the name!🍩)
Example
Select image to enlarge
Best practice
The sections ('slices') must add up to 100% in total.
Compare only a few categories to get your point across.
If the sections are roughly the same size, consider using a Bar Chart instead.