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Getting actionable answers from bulky data is tedious and time-consuming.
This is where data visualization charts come in.
The visualization designs can help you distill business data into meaningful insights. And this can save tons of hours, which you can use to relax or execute other tasks.
We recommend charts that communicate insights with clarity, especially when creating compelling data stories for audiences (or readers).
Some of the tested and proven data visualization charts include:
Excel is one of the go-to popular data visualization tools among professionals and business owners worldwide.
But the visualization tool has very basic Dot Plot, Radar, Treemaps, Pareto, and Scatter Plot Charts. And this implies you’ve got to invest extra effort and time to edit the charts to align with your needs.
You can download and install a specific add-in in your Excel to access ready-to-use charts (highlighted above).
In this blog post, you’ll learn the following:
Before diving right into the blog’s central theme, let’s address the following question: what is a chart?
Definition: Charts are graphical representations of data that tell a story using symbols to ease understanding of large data quantities.
Humans interpret visual data 60,000 times faster than numbers and texts. And this means to make your data story more compelling, you’ve got to use charts and graphs. You can easily uncover hidden trends, patterns, relationships, and other insights.
Keep reading because we’ll address the following question in the coming section: what is the importance of graphs and charts?
The different types of charts for representing data we’ll talk about can improve productivity and efficiency in the workplace. In other words, you can leverage data to predict risks, such as declining productivity.
Charts and graphs can help you track productivity metrics in real-time. With a solid business analytics strategy, you can easily point out gaps and improvement areas in your workplace or business.
In today’s world, customers have a broader range of choices.
If your business is aligned with the customers’ desires and expectations, you can easily find yourself in a downward spiral. Customers change their minds as they are continuously exposed to new information in their purchasing journey.
With the vast amount of data, it’s practically impossible for you to make sense of all the changes in the market.
The different types of charts for representing data (which we’ll talk about in a few) provide you with answers about the changing behavior of the market. You can easily point out significant shifts in tastes and preferences by using charts.
Timely awareness of customer behavior changes can be the decisive factor in the current competitive landscape.
Gone are the days you could easily sell a standard set of products and services to customers.
Today’s market craves products and services that can meet their individual needs.
One of the benefits of business charts is that they can help you keep track of your target market’s tastes, preferences, and needs. You can leverage data from various attributions, such as social media and websites, to create a reliable persona for the market.
Many small and medium-sized businesses are still betting on gut feel rather than facts and data.
One of the key reasons for this could be a lack of access to quality data to back decision-making processes.
Business charts can help you distill signals from noise in your raw data. And this can save massive amounts of time. Just imagine the competitive advantage you would enjoy by relying on data to make strategic decisions.
In the coming section, we’ll address the following question: what are the major benefits of a chart?
The different types of charts for representing data are vital, especially when crafting data stories for the top management. Top management can use data presentation graphs, such as Pareto and Scatter Plot Charts, as a backdrop for their decision.
Presentation charts, maps, and graphs are powerful because they simplify data by making it understandable and readable at the same time. Besides, they make data stories compelling and irresistible to target audiences.
Thanks to creative data visualization examples, such as Pareto Charts, you can interpret vast quantities of data clearly and cohesively to draw conclusions and see perspectives.
You can easily create and rapidly consume key metrics associated with your business or workplace.
If any of the aforementioned metrics have anomalies, such as a significant decline in sales, you can easily dig into the data.
We naturally process visual images 60,000 times faster than text. Creative data visualization examples, such as charts and maps, are more comfortable for our brain to process.
Thanks to our ability to easily interpret visual content, data presentation examples can dramatically improve the speed of decision-making processes.
We’ll cover the following: types of charts to use for your data in the coming section.
A Dot Plot Chart consists of data points plotted as dots on a graph.
You can use the chart to visualize univariate and categorical data types. Dot Plot (one of the different types of charts for representing data) can help you extract reliable insights from smaller data sets.
Also, you can use the chart to uncover critical insights, such as trends and clusters in your business data.
The Dot Plot displays the number of data points that fall into each category or value on the axis, thus showing the distribution variables in your data.
Furthermore, a Dot Plot groups vital metrics in your data in dots, which you can label easily. And this gives a visual depiction of the data distribution, similar to a histogram or probability distribution function. With this chart, you can easily detect macro insights, such as the central tendency, dispersion, skewness, and data modality.
A Radar Chart is one of the most modern graphs and charts – ideal for multiple comparisons. The visualization design uses a circular display with several different quantitative axes looking like spokes on a wheel.
Each axis shows insights into key data points.
The graph goes by multiple monikers, such as:
Check out the benefits of a Radar Chart below:
One of the key advantages of a Radar Chart (one of the different types of charts for representing data) is you can easily display insights into two or more significant data points. In other words, you can display multiple variables within a limited space without cluttering.
You can use a Radar Chart with multiple scales to compare two or more significant variables in your data. For instance, you can compare gross profits, net profits, and dividends issued within a single chart.
One of the reasons why seasoned data visualization experts use the Radar Chart is that it displays hidden outliers and anomalies within your data.
Treemap Charts are ideal for displaying large amounts of hierarchically structured (tree-structured) data. The space in the visualization is split up into rectangles sized and ordered based on key data points.
The levels in the hierarchy of the Treemap are visualized as rectangles containing other rectangles. Each set of rectangles on the same level in the hierarchy represents a column or an expression in a data table.
Each individual rectangle on a level in the hierarchy represents a category in a column.
Keep reading because we’re not yet done with all the different types of charts for representing data.
A Pareto Chart is a graph that indicates the frequency of defects and their cumulative impact.
The chart is useful, especially in hunting for defects to achieve maximum overall improvement. The key purpose of a Pareto Diagram (one of the different types of charts for representing data) is to separate the significant aspects of a problem from the trivial ones.
Pareto Chart is based on the classic 80/20 rule. The rule says that 20% of the causal factors result in 80% of the overall outcomes. For instance, 80% of the world’s total wealth is held by 20% of the population.
This easy-to-read chart prevents you from attacking the causes randomly by uncovering the top 20% of the problems, negatively affecting 80% of your overall performance.
You can use a Pareto Chart, especially when you encounter multiple related problems or a common problem with numerous causes in your business. Many people use Pareto Chart in Quality Control process to ensure they get best results from their processes.
Why?
A Pareto Chart empowers you to categorize occurrences based on their impact on a common strategic goal or objective. This visualization design aims to categorize key variables in your data based on their frequency of occurrence.
A Scatter Plot Chart (one of the different types of charts for representing data) is a visualization design that uses Cartesian coordinates to display insights into varying data sets.
The chart uses dots to display relationships between variables.
The Scatter Plot communicates insights using dots or markers between its x and y-axes. Essentially, each of the chart’s dots appears “scattered” hence its name. Use Scatter Plot to determine the causal effect relationship between key data points.
For instance, you can use the visualization design to track the relationship between profits and employees’ training in your business.
Excel comes with pretty basic version of charts discussed above. And this means you need to rework these charts, which means additional time spent.
If you feel you’ve outgrown the basic charts offered by Excel, give ChartExpo a try.
Why?
ChartExpo is an add-in you can install in Excel to access different types of charts for representing data, such as Scatter Plot.
More so, the data visualization tool produces ready-made and visually stunning charts. ChartExpo has tons of ready-made charts you’ll never find in freemium data visualization tools, such as Excel. You don’t need programming or coding to use ChartExpo. Yes, it’s that easy to use this highly intuitive tool.
So how can you install ChartExpo in Excel?
We’ll use a Scatter Plot to visualize the tabular data below for insights.
| Products Type | Products | Profit | cost | no. of orders |
| Cosmetic | Face Primer | 15.79 | 90 | 10 |
| Cosmetic | Foundation | 20.13 | 70 | 12 |
| Cosmetic | Concealer | 38.62 | 190 | 9 |
| Cosmetic | Blush | 34.62 | 880 | 16 |
| Cosmetic | Highlighter | 71.84 | 900 | 22 |
| Cosmetic | Bronzer | 71.84 | 600 | 23 |
| Cosmetic | Powder | 32.77 | 600 | 42 |
| Cosmetic | Eye Primer | 21.8 | 1300 | 19 |
| Electronics | TVs | 110 | 590 | 28 |
| Electronics | refrigerators | 12.61 | 390 | 11 |
| Electronics | washing machines | 70.21 | 490 | 41 |
| Electronics | air conditioners | 70.21 | 390 | 18 |
| Electronics | printers | 68.83 | 260 | 17 |
| Electronics | speakers | 17.55 | 210 | 2 |
| Electronics | keyboards | 54.74 | 170 | 23 |
| Electronics | e-readers | 12.66 | 170 | 13 |
Here’s the complete step-by-step guide on installing the ChartExpo add-in for the Excel application.
To get started with the Scatter Plot in Excel, follow the steps below
If you display more than twelve attributes, your chart will be cluttered
To extract reliable insights, use similar measurement types. For example, if two statistics are measured in percentage and two in units, then all four appear in the graph because the y-axis allows you to have two like-measurements each.
Tables are manageable and easy to read if dealing with a smaller data sample. However, we recommend charts and graphs if you’re dealing with thousands of rows and columns.
And this is because they can represent reliable insights into key data points that matter the most.
Charts, tables, maps, and graphs are all significant, primarily if you work with data frequently. And this is because they distill insights from noise, which save a lot of time.
Secondly, you can easily integrate charts, graphs, and maps as backdrops into your data story.
Getting actionable answers from bulky data is time-intensive, which is where charts come in.
The visualization designs can help you distill business data into meaningful insights. And this can save tons of hours. We recommend charts that communicate insights with clarity, especially when creating compelling data stories.
Some of the tested and proven data visualization charts include:
Excel is one of the go-to popular data visualization tools among professionals and business owners worldwide.
But the visualization tool has very basic Dot Plot, Radar, Treemaps, Pareto, and Scatter Plot Charts. And this implies you’ve got to invest extra effort and time to edit the charts.
We recommend you install third-party apps, such as ChartExpo, to access different types of charts for representing data. This easy-to-use data visualization tool comes as an add-on you can easily download and install in your spreadsheet app.
ChartExpo comes loaded with insightful and easy-to-interpret Scatter Diagrams, plus many ready-made and insightful charts. You don’t need programming or coding skills to visualize your data using ChartExpo.
Sign up for a 7-day free trial today to access ready-made and crystal-clear charts for representing data.
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Charts and graphs are data visualization tools that help you make quick decisions by understanding data better. Learn how to create a chart in Excel?
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