Basic & Commonly used Chart Types for Data Professionals

As a Data Professional, Instead of showing data in a sentence or table, which is hard to read, You can show Data using suitable graph in Excel, Power BI, Tableau Etc. for better understanding


 Column Chart

Column Chart is made of Vertical Bars. Each Bar shows Each value. 

Column Chart is mostly used to show the performance of an Employee every year, every month, etc...

You can also use this chart to show Sales, Quantity, Improvement by time period.

It works best if you have X axis = Timeline & Y axis = Quantity / Value.






Bar Chart:

Bar Chart is made of Horizontal Bars. Each Bar shows Value of Each Category.

You can use this Chart to show Data by Category Like Products: TV, Mobile, Fridge.

It helps analyze which is a Top Category and which is a Lowest Category.

It works best if you have X axis = Value & Y axis = Category.






Line Chart:

It is used to show Trends over time.

Internet Service provider Companies can check how the Internet speed in your area changes every Second. Every Minute. So they know if Speed is Consistent or not.

Price changes of Gold every Month, every year can be checked using this chart.

It works best if you have X axis = Timeline & Y axis = Quantity.






Pie Chart:

Pie Chart works best when you want to show how much Each Category Contributed.

If 5 Students working in a project, this chart will show which student contributed more to the project and which student gave less effort for the project.

As per this above graph, You can see Blue Contributed 40% for the Project and Green contributed only 7% for the project.

A Manager will understand which Employee is giving more effort in the team by looking at this graph.

Doughnut Chart

Doughnut Chart is same as Pie Chart but looks like a Doughnut with empty space in center.

Same as Pie Chart, Doughnut works best when you want to show how much Each Category Contributed.

It is used mostly in Dashboards to save space and look neat.

If a company has 4 departments, this chart will show how much each department contributed to total revenue.

Stacked Column Chart

Stacked Column Chart is made of vertical bars, but each bar is split into multiple parts.

It is used to show total value and also how the value is divided into Categories.

Using Stacked Column Chart, you can see how many products Sold every Month based on the height of the bar. Also what are the items sold each month based on Colors in the bar.

It helps compare both total and breakdown at the same time.

X Axis = Time, Y Axis = Total Value (divided by Colors / categories)

Stacked Bar Chart

It is same as Stacked Column Chart, But Instead of Vertical Bars, we have Horizontal bars. 

Using Stacked Bar Chart, you can see how many products Sold in each Category based on the length of the bar. Also what are the items sold each month based on Colors in the bar.

You can see TV Sales, Fridge Sales using the bar length.

Also you can see Whether is it LCD TV or LED TV & Single Door Fridge or Double Door Fridge using the colors of each bar.

X Axis = Total Value , Y Axis = Category & Sub Category.

Area Chart

Area Chart is same as Line Chart. It shows Ups and Downs. Increase and Decrease. But it has Colors under the Line.

It shows how value changes over time and also gives a volume feel using the Colors.

Useful for comparing multiple trends and showing the total size visually.

You can see how many people visiting your website each month from different regions easily with area chart.

X Axis = Time, Y Axis = Value

Combo Chart (Line + Column)

Combo Chart combines 2 charts into one, usually a Column Chart and a Line Chart.

Using this chart, you can compare two values side by side in a bar chart using timeline.

Also you can see the Trend of this Chart , Whether it is goind up or down using Line Chart.

Here you can see Total Sales is Dark Blue, Profit is Light Blue and the trend every year is shown using Line Chart.

It is very useful in Business Dashboards.

X Axis = Time Period and Y Axis = Category & Values.

Scatter Plot (XY Chart)

Scatter Plot uses Dots to show the patterns.

It is used for understanding if two columns, two values are related to each other or not.

If a Student studying more hours, he gets more marks. You can clearly tell Study time is linked to Exam marks.

But if you Don't know whether two columns and two values are linked to each other, Best way to find out is using Scatter plot.

If Employee Work time is 8 Hours per day and his completed 50 Tasks.

If you give this data to Scatter plot, it will put one dot in X axis = 8 and Y axis = 50 on the graph. 

Scatter Plot helps us see if one value affects another Value or not.

This is very important in data analysis and Data Science prediction.

Histogram

Normally in Other Charts, we will see Which Category has More Values and Less values. 

But in Histogram, we will see Which Value has More Category and Less Category.


Histogram will split the values into multiple parts and it will show which value has more category.

It splits data into Multiple Parts and shows how many items fall into each range.

You can use this Chart to show How many students scored between 0-25, 26-50, 51-75, 76 - 100 Marks.

If you have more people Scoring Good Marks, You can see the 76 -100 Bar will become taller. 

if you have More people Having low marks, the 0-25 Marks Bar will be taller.

Good for understanding performance spread.

KPI Card (Data Card)

It is called Card Visual. It looks like a Simple White Square Greeting Card.

This Card shows only one number in big size.

You can use this card in your Dashboard first page to show most important numbers to your Managers.

Normally used to highlight Total Sales, Monthly Profit, Number of Customers, etc.

Gauge Chart

This Chart Looks like a Speedometer in your car or bike.

Used to show target and actual performance.

If the Performance is great, it shows High Speed. Else it shows Low Speed.

You set a sales target of ₹10 Lakh. This chart will show if you reached 80%, 100%, of your target.

Very useful in Executive Dashboards.

Map / Filled Map

Map Chart shows data by location like country, state, city.

It is useful for Showing Sales by Region, Customers by State, Cases by District.

Power BI can detect location based on your Category and color the map by values.

It gives Instant Idea to the viewers which State or Country is performing Well.

Funnel Chart

Funnel Chart is used to show Step by Step process and Finding where the mistake happened in the entire process.

In this above funnel chart, you can see How many Leads / Interested people came to your shop and how many people actually purchased.

Lets say

Leads / Visitors = 100
Sales Calls made to this customers by your employees = 76
Follow up calls made to these customers again = 50
Conversion = How many people made a decision to buy = 30
Sales = How many people actually purchased = 20

Now, we started from 100 Interested people to 20 Actual Buyers. 

This is called Funnel Chart. 

It shows where the most drop happens. So Managers can investigate which team is not working properly.

Tree Map

Tree Map uses boxes to show size of Each categories.

Each box size is based on value.

Used to show sales by category, profit by region, etc.

Here you can see New Delhi is the Biggest Box and Lahore is the smallest Box.

It helps see which part is contributing most and which category is High vs low.