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Displaying insights into raw data in a pecking order makes it incredibly easy for audiences (and readers) to understand a data story.
Why?
Essentially, our brains can easily recognize hierarchical patterns in a chart, graph, or map. Visualizing data using charts that display insights using a stratum or ranking order can help you sell your story faster.
Yes, you read that right.
To get the buy-in of your recommendations or findings, you’ve got to distill data into a digestible form. Using simple and easy-to-interpret charts is the first step to getting there.
A Sunburst Chart is unarguably among the best visualization diagrams that display insights hierarchically. Use the chart if your goal is to uncover comparison insights between critical metrics.
Google Sheets is one of the popular data visualizations among professionals and business owners worldwide.
But the spreadsheet application comes with pretty basic Sunburst Charts, which need extra effort and time in terms of customizations.
It turns out there’s a Sunburst Chart generator that’s incredibly easy to use. Besides, it produces visually appealing and ready-to-use Sunburst Charts, with many more advanced graphs.
We’ve rounded up valuable tips to help you get started with a Sunburst Chart generator in this blog post.
You’ll also learn how to create simple and clear charts that complement your data stories seamlessly.
Before diving right into Sunburst Chart Generator, let’s go through the chart’s definition.
You can use the Sunburst Chart (also known as the Ring Chart) to display hierarchical insights into a data set.
The chart uses a series of concentric rings to bring out ranking insights. Besides, each ring in the chart corresponds to a hierarchy.
Each ring is segmented proportionally to represent its constituent details. Focusing on a segment in the ring gives a sense of the part-to-whole relationship of a data point with respect to its parent ring segment.
You need an easy-to-navigate Sunburst Chart generator to produce insightful and simple charts.
A Sunburst Chart shares similarities with a Donut Chart. How? Both charts are circular. But, a Sunburst Visualization Design uses ranking segments to compare metrics.
Sunburst and Treemaps are ideal for uncovering hierarchical insights in your data.
However, a Sunburst Graph is most effective at displaying part-to-whole insights. On the other hand, the Treemap chart is ideal for comparing the relative sizes of the key metrics in your data.
To enjoy the immersive visualization experience brought about by this chart, you need to go beyond the basic charts provided by Google Sheets.
Give the Sunburst Chart generator (that we’ll talk about in the coming sections) a try.
We acknowledge that Google Sheets is a trusted data visualization tool because it’s familiar. More so, it has been there for decades.
Google Sheets should not be your go-to Sunburst Chart generator, especially if you want to harness hidden insights.
Why?
As a Sunburst Chart generator, Google Sheets produces pretty basic charts, which can consume massive amounts of time in editing.
We’re not recommending you do away with Google Sheets. There’s a Sunburst Chart generator that comes as an add-on you can install in your Google Sheets to access simple and clear visualization designs.
It’s no doubt there’re thousands of add-ons in the Google Workspace Marketplace.
The add-on which we are talking about is ChartExpo. We recommend you to use ChartExpo as a Sunburst Chart Generator because it has been used and tested by thousands of professionals who highly recommend it.
ChartExpo is a Sunburst Chart generator that 44,000-plus professionals and business owners across the world use to create insightful and easy-to-understand visualizations.
The tool comes as an add-on you can easily install in your Google Sheets & Excel to get the most from your data.
With ChartExpo, you have maximum freedom to label your Sunburst charts to align with your data story. More so, the easy-to-use data visualization tool is loaded with many advanced charts in its library, such as:
There are two methods for installing the ChartExpo add-on into Google Sheets.
The second method entails downloading ChartExpo directly in the Google Sheets App.
Congratulations if you’ve managed to install ChartExpo into your Google Sheets without any hitch.
You’ll learn to visualize your data using the Sunburst Chart Generator (ChartExpo) in the next section.
Imagine you sell cars for a living. You want to know the contribution of each car brand to your revenue.
Which chart would you use to gain insights?
Let’s visualize the data below using Sunburst Charts in ChartExpo.
| Category | Companies | Models | Unit Sold |
| Cars | Ford | Fiesta | 45,831 |
| Cars | Ford | Focus | 151,549 |
| Cars | Ford | Fusion | 181,668 |
| Cars | Ford | C-Max | 23,040 |
| Cars | Ford | Taurus | 49,886 |
| Cars | Ford | Mustang | 48,879 |
| Cars | Toyota | Avalon | 33,580 |
| Cars | Toyota | Camry | 256,764 |
| Cars | Toyota | Prius | 43,525 |
| Cars | Nissan | Altima | 75,507 |
| Cars | Honda | Accord | 157,988 |
| Cars | Chevrolet | Malibu | 32,155 |
Copy the table in Google Sheets to get started with Sunburst Charts.
Insights
The sunburst chart is ideal for displaying hierarchical data.
In other words, you can use this chart to display insights into data in a hierarchical manner (from largest to smallest values).
Each level of the hierarchy in the Sunburst Visualization is represented by one ring or circle, with the innermost circle being the top of the order.
You can use this chart to complement your data stories. And this is because the visualization design is easy to interpret, even for non-technical audiences.
The chart also excels in handling bulky and complex data sets. Yes, you read that right. You can use this graph to turn complex raw data into ranked insights.
Use Sunburst Graphs if your goal is to display in-depth insights into dimensions and their relationships with metrics.
The chart has sliced-up rings, divided based on their hierarchical relationship to the parent slice (center-most circle). The angle of each slice is either divided proportionally based on its contribution to the aggregate value.
For instance, in our Sunburst Visualization Design (above), the total number of cars sold is 600k. Ford brand accounts for the largest piece of the pie.
Use a sunburst chart to display insights in ranking order for audiences to decode meanings faster.
Also, you can use this chart to bring out part-to-whole relationship insights into the open. The chart uses color to create an impression of a comparison of variables.
Essentially, each color shade depicts a metric or dimension in a data set.
The list of practical and successful applications of Sunburst in today’s world is quite huge. But, we’ve summarized it to cover areas that have experienced a huge impact as a result of using the charts.
Check them out (below).
A Sunburst Chart consists of an inner circle surrounded by rings ranked in levels. You can use this chart to display hierarchical insights into your data.
Each level of the hierarchy in a Sunburst Diagram is represented by one ring with the innermost circle as the highest point of the hierarchy.
The sunburst chart is ideal for displaying hierarchical data.
In other words, you can use this chart to display insights into data in a hierarchical manner (from largest to smallest values). Professionals and business owners worldwide use the chart to uncover hidden part-to-whole relationships in data.
It’s no secret that our brains can easily decode charts displaying insights in ranking order.
Also, you can use a Sunburst Chart to determine part-to-whole relationships in critical metrics in your data.
Google Sheets should not be your go-to Sunburst Chart generator if you intend to create easy-to-interpret and detailed diagrams. And this is because it produces basic Sunburst Diagrams. You’ve got to spend more time customizing your charts to align with your data stories.
What Sunburst Chart Generator do we recommend?
We recommend installing third-party apps, such as ChartExpo, in your Google Sheets to access ready-made Sunburst Charts. ChartExpo is an add-on you can easily download and install in your Google Sheets.
This Sunburst Chart generator has over a large number of ready-to-use charts, which are visually stunning and easy to interpret.
Unlike other tools, 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 visually appealing and ready-to-use Sunburst Charts.
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