Types of Charts: A Quick Guide to Data Visualization Essentials

Visualizing data can transform the way you (or more importantly your customers) understand information. With an array of charts at your disposal, picking the right one for your data and audience enhances clarity and impact. Think of charts like tools in a toolbox; each has its specific purpose and use. Whether you're trying to show trends, patterns, or relationships in data, there's a chart type that can help you highlight the important aspects efficiently.

Bar graphs, for instance, are ideal when you want to compare different groups, while line charts are perfect for illustrating trends over time. For showing parts of a whole, pie charts work well, but if you're dealing with complex data sets with multiple variables, a scatter plot might be the way to go. Knowing when to use these along with area charts, funnel charts, or more sophisticated representations like treemaps ensures your data doesn't just speak—it sings.

Each chart type has its strengths and best use cases, and learning these can make your reports, dashboards, and emails more engaging. So, let's take the guesswork out and dive into some of the most commonly used chart types to bring your data storytelling to the next level.

Basic Chart Types

Let's start with the basics. When you're looking to present data visually, you've got a few standard options each tailored for different kinds of data and comparisons.

Line Charts

Line charts are your go-to when you want to show trends over time. They’re made of points connected by lines and are especially useful to track changes across a continuous scale. For instance, you might use a line chart when you're looking at stock market trends or measuring temperature changes through the seasons.

Bar Charts

Bar charts are versatile for when you need to compare discrete categories of data. With bars representing the magnitude of your variables, this chart helps you spot the bigger and smaller numbers at first glance. A bar graph might be your best choice when comparing the sales of different products or the population sizes of various cities.

Pie Charts

Use pie charts when your data is a whole that can be divided into parts to show proportions. Each slice of the pie relates to a part of the whole. These are ideal when you need to show percentage distributions, like what part of your budget goes to rent, groceries, or entertainment. Dive into pie charts for situations where the relationship of parts to the whole is clearer than numbers alone.

Statistical Charts

When you're sifting through data, the right chart can make all the difference in understanding what you're looking at. Statistical charts are essential to visualize the distribution, variability, and central tendency of your dataset.

Histograms

Histograms are your go-to when you need to display the distribution of numerical data that's been divided into intervals, also known as bins. Picture this: you've got a set of data points—let's say test scores—and you want to see how they spread across different score ranges. A histogram can show you how many scores fall into each range, giving you a clear picture of the distribution at a glance.

Box Plots

Box plots, sometimes called box-and-whisker plots, give you a fast snapshot of data variability and spread. The box itself contains the middle 50% of your data, which is the interquartile range (IQR). The lines or "whiskers" extending from the box indicate the range of the data, while dots or asterisks represent outliers. This concise visualization helps you compare distributions between different sets of data and can quickly point out where the data skews.

Comparison Charts

When you're looking at data, comparison charts are key for spotting trends and differences. They let you pit variables against each other to make those insights pop.

Waterfall Charts

A waterfall chart is your go-to for understanding the sequential impact of positive or negative values. Imagine you're tracking your company's profit over a series of events. Waterfall charts break this down step by step, showing you how each event contributes to your final financial position.

Scatter Plots

If you need to identify correlations, scatter plots are your friend. Let's say you're curious about the relationship between ad spend and website traffic—scatter plots will map out your data points to highlight any trends.

Composition Charts

When you're looking to show how different parts make up a whole, composition charts are your go-to. These visual tools are perfect for breaking down datasets into their constituent elements.

Stacked Bar Charts

With Stacked Bar Charts, you can compare the cumulative total of different categories and see the proportional contribution each category makes to the whole. Imagine you're looking at a stacked bar chart of your monthly spending; each bar could show how much went to rent, groceries, and other expenses in one quick glimpse. Or if you want to see total earnings across a portfolio of products you could quickly get a sense of totals as well as the amount of revenue that came from each product.

Area Charts

On the other hand, Area Charts let you track changes in composition over time. You'll find them similar to line charts, but they fill the space below the line, emphasizing the magnitude of values. They can be especially handy for visualizing something like the shift in market share over quarters or years, with various products or services shaded differently to show how each has contributed to total sales. These are also regularly used to show changes in net worth over time.

Specialized Chart Types

When you're diving into complex data sets, some charts stand out for their ability to represent multifaceted information. The following specialized types provide unique views that can reveal patterns and insights in your data.

Funnel charts

A funnel chart is basically an upside-down pyramid where each section represents a stage in a process. It's super handy when you want to show how something flows or progresses, like a customer journey or sales pipeline. Perfect for tracking conversions or drop-offs at different stages.

Heat Maps

Heat maps allow you to visualize complex data through variations in coloring. They're particularly useful when you need to understand density or magnitude, as they can reveal the concentration of data points. For example, you might use a heat map to understand user activity on a website or to analyze geographic demographic distribution. Github's heatmap tool showing contributions to Github repos is one of their most beloved features.

Bubble Charts

Bubble charts take the concept of scatter plots further by adding a third dimension—often represented by the size of the bubble—to convey additional data points. If you’re looking for trends in a data set that includes three variables, your go-to might be a bubble chart. They can illustrate data like the relationship between a company’s advertising spend, sales figures, and consumer awareness.

It's important to note that while bubble charts can be informative, they should be used judiciously. In some cases, simpler visualizations like bar charts or scatter plots may be more effective, depending on the nature of the data and the insights you want to convey.

Radar charts

Radar charts have spokes radiating from the center, each representing a different category or variable. It's the go-to when you want to showcase multiple data points across various dimensions. Perfect for comparing performance or characteristics of lots of different elements. In most cases where you where you would use a radar chart you could also use a bar chart or an area chart. It really boils down to the complexity of your data, and the number of dimensions you want to show.

Also we gotta give a shout-out to the OG radar chart we all knew and loved:

Treemaps

Treemaps display hierarchical data as a set of nested rectangles. Each branch of the hierarchy is given a rectangle, which is then tiled with smaller rectangles representing sub-branches. If you've got a large amount of hierarchical data like website traffic sources or organizational structure, treemaps help you see the big picture at a glance.

Interested in adding charts to your emails, reports, or presentations?

Chartkit makes it easy to create beautiful chart templates and to generate personalized charts at scale. The bar chart, line chart, and pie chart examples used in this post were all generated with chartkit. If you'd like to give it a try, you can join the waitlist to be notified when we launch! We'll involve everyone on the waitlist in the process of building out the product, so this is your chance to shape it into the tool you want.