Whitepaper How to Choose the Right Data Visualization
www.sisense.com
About This Guide
Data visualization is one of the cornerstones of an effective dashboard or report. People find it easier to process information in visual format, and a good visualization can tell a complete story in moments, or simplify complex data problems into a bottom line that’s easy to understand.
However, when done wrong, data visualization can do more harm than good – a chart that doesn’t give any meaningful insight into the data is at best a waste of space, and at worst could even form a misleading picture about the state of the business or department being examined.
This guide is meant to help you decide between different types of data visualization methods, and find the ones that are best suited to answer the particular question you have about your data.
While this list is by no means a comprehensive guide to every single type of data visualization available, becoming familiar with these 15 basic ones should give you a good starting point to visually represent the answers to most common business questions you are likely to encounter.
You will also find additional resources about data visualization, defining KPIs, dashboard design and more at the end of this guide.
www.sisense.com
1. Indicator
If you need to display one or two numeric values such as a number, gauge or ticker, use the Indicators visualization. You can add additional titles and a color-coded indicator icon, such as a green up arrow or a red down arrow to represent the value in the most clear way.
www.sisense.com
2. Line Chart
The line chart is a popular chart because it works well for many business cases, including to:
Compare data over time to view trends (Example: analyze sales revenue for the past year) Compare changes over the same period of time for more than one group or category (Example: analyze expenditures of different business units for the past year). Here you just need to simply add a “break by” category:
www.sisense.com
3. Column Chart
The column chart is best used for comparing items and comparing data over time. The column chart can include multiple values on both the X and Y axis, as well as a breakdown by categories displayed on the Y axis.
To highlight peaks and trends, you can also combine the column chart with a line chart:
www.sisense.com
4. Bar Chart
Use the bar chart to compare many items. The bar chart typically presents categories or items displayed along the Y axis, with their values displayed on the X axis. You can also break up the values by another category or group.
www.sisense.com
5. Pie Chart
The pie chart is best when you are aiming to display proportional data, and/or percentages. Since the pie chart represents the size relationship between the parts and the entire entity, the parts need to sum to a meaningful whole. Pie charts should only display around six categories or fewer.
www.sisense.com
6. Area Chart
Though an area chart may seem similar to a line chart, the areas under each line are filled in (colored), and it is therefore possible to display them as stacked for better comparison. Use an area chart if you are looking to display absolute or relative (stacked) values over a time period.
www.sisense.com
7. Pivot Table
Pivot tables are one of the most simple and useful ways to visualize data. You can quickly summarize and analyze large amounts of data and use additional features such as color formatting and data bars to enhance the visual aspects.
www.sisense.com
8. Scatter Chart
The best scenario to use the popular scatter chart is when you are trying to display the distribution and relationship of two variables. The circles on the chart represent the categories being compared (circle color), and the size or numeric data (indicated by the circle size). A good example is if you are trying to compare revenue and units sold by gender.
www.sisense.com
9. Scatter Map / Area Map
A scatter map helps viewers visualize geographical data across a region as data points on a map. You can visualize up to two sets of numeric data using circle color and size to represent the value of your data.
www.sisense.com
10. Treemap
The treemap is a multi-dimensional widget that displays hierarchical data in the form of nested rectangles. You can use this type of chart in different scenarios, for example, instead of a column chart when you want to compare many categories and sub-categories.
www.sisense.com
11. Polar Chart
A polar (radar) chart looks similar to a pie chart, but is used to compare multiple categories/variables with a spatial perspective in a radial chart. See for example an emergency room admission chart by division of department.
www.sisense.com
12. Table
A regular table displays a broader view of your data, presenting raw and non-aggregated data in columns with as many fields or metrics as needed. A table differs from a pivot table in that it does not offer the same dimensions possibilities as a pivot table.
www.sisense.com
13. Area Map
An area map is best to use when you need to visualize geographical information to show trends in certain areas. The value of your data affects the shade of color/ color of the areas.
www.sisense.com
14. Sunburst Widget
The sunburst widget is similar to a pie chart, but is extraordinarily multi- dimensional. While a pie chart combines one field and one numeric value, the sunburst widget can display multiple rings, one for each field where each ring shows a breakdown of its parent ring slice.
www.sisense.com
15. Calendar Heatmap
The calendar heatmap is used to visualize values over days in a calendar-like view, making it easy to identify daily patterns or anomalies. You can choose to display the data in a number of ways including 1, 3, 6 or 12 months at a time, or to opt for a classic or week view.
www.sisense.com
Additional Resources
Data Visualization Wizard ARTICLE: How to Plan Your Next BI Project ARTICLE: How to Define KPIs for Successful Business Intelligence WEBINAR: How to Build a Better Dashboard WHITEPAPER: The Data Mash-up Cheat Sheet Sisense Business Intelligence Software: Free Trial
www.sisense.com