But what about a graph or chart? A good graph or chart can show as much as several paragraphs of words. But how do you choose which style of graph to use? This page sets out some of the basics behind drawing and creating good graphs and charts. There are several different types of charts and graphs. The four most common are probably line graphs, bar graphs and histograms, pie charts, and Cartesian graphs. They are generally used for, and are best for, quite different things.
Bar graphs to show numbers that are independent of each other. Example data might include things like the number of people who preferred each of Chinese takeaways, Indian takeaways and fish and chips. Pie charts to show you how a whole is divided into different parts. You might, for example, want to show how a budget had been spent on different items in a particular year.
Line graphs show you how numbers have changed over time. They are used when you have data that are connected, and to show trends, for example, average night-time temperature in each month of the year. Cartesian graphs have numbers on both axes, which therefore allow you to show how changes in one thing affect another.
These are widely used in mathematics, and particularly in algebra. Graphs have two axes , the lines that run across the bottom and up the side.
The line along the bottom is called the horizontal or x-axis , and the line up the side is called the vertical or y-axis. The numbers on the y-axis generally, but not always, start at 0 in the bottom left of the graph, and move upwards. Usually the axes of a graph are labelled to indicate the type of data they show. Beware of graphs where the y-axis doesn't start at 0, as they may be trying to fool you about the data shown and there is more about this on our page, Everyday Mathematics.
Bar graphs generally have categories on the x-axis, and numbers on the y-axis but these are interchangeable. This means that you can compare numbers between different categories. The categories need to be independent, that is changes in one of them do not affect the others. You can see immediately that this graph gives you a clear picture of which category is largest and which is smallest.
It gives a clear comparison between categories. You can also use the graph to read off information about how many are in each category without having to refer back to the data table, which may or may not be provided with every graph you see.
Free Trial. We see most visualizations as fulfilling one of four main objectives: Showing how values compare to each other Showing how the data is distributed Showing how the data is composed Showing how values relate to one another The challenge of choosing the right visualization lies in finding the goal beneath your data question. Outcome : Strawberry sorbet Yum. The same process still works: Question : How much of my income should I save? Composition questions ask what general features are present in the data set.
Questions in this category ask how values and attributes relate to each other. Identifying the goal beneath the question Now you have references to help you choose between chart types. Goal : Compare values number of users over time days Outcome : A line chart. Question : What channels are these new users coming from? Outcome : An area chart.
Question : Which referrers are driving the most traffic to our website? Goal : Compare values number of sessions across categories referrers. Outcome : A bar chart. Outcome : A stacked bar chart. Outcome : A grouped bar chart. That should be enough to get the team started on the acquisition metrics. Question : What time of day sees the highest number of users on our website?
Outcome : Overlay line chart. Question : Which landing pages are driving the most engagement by channel? Outcome : Heat map. Questions in the conversion realm can be broken down like this: Question : Where do we have opportunities to drive more traffic to high-performing web pages?
Outcome : Scatterplot. This framework works for data across all industries, not just marketing. Conclusion Which chart you use impacts how people understand your data and what decisions they make based on that understanding. Posted in: Data Analytics Google Cloud. However, when trying to measure change over time, bar graphs are best when the changes are larger.
Area graphs are very similar to line graphs. They can be used to track changes over time for one or more groups. Area graphs are good to use when you are tracking the changes in two or more related groups that make up one whole category for example public and private groups. X-Y plots are used to determine relationships between the two different things.
The x-axis is used to measure one event or variable and the y-axis is used to measure the other.
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