Which data visualization type is best for your data? Explore bar charts, line graphs, heatmaps, and more.

Types of Data Visualization

Dale Clifford
Internet Stack
3 min readAug 29, 2023

--

As a website content author specialising in search engine optimisation, keywords to optimise page conversion and post category tag manager, it is important to understand the different types of data visualisation to effectively communicate data insights to your audience.

In this guide, we will cover everything you need to know about types of data visualisation.

Getting Started

Data visualisation is the process of presenting data in a visual format such as charts, graphs, and maps.

It is a powerful tool that can help you to communicate complex data insights in a clear and concise manner.

Learning about different types of data visualisation can help you to choose the most effective format for your data and improve your ability to communicate insights.

This guide is for anyone who wants to improve their data visualisation skills, including marketers, analysts, business owners, and anyone who works with data.

How to

  1. Bar Charts: Used to compare values across categories, bar charts are a great way to show changes over time or compare different categories. They are easy to read and can be horizontal or vertical.
  2. Line Charts: Used to show trends over time, line charts are great for displaying data that changes continuously. They are easy to read and can be used to compare multiple data sets.
  3. Pie Charts: Used to show the proportion of different categories, pie charts are great for displaying data that adds up to 100%. They are easy to read and can be used to compare multiple data sets.
  4. Scatter Plots: Used to show the relationship between two variables, scatter plots are great for displaying data that has a strong correlation. They are easy to read and can be used to identify outliers.
  5. Heat Maps: Used to show the distribution of data across a two-dimensional space, heat maps are great for displaying large amounts of data. They are easy to read and can be used to identify patterns in data.

Best Practices

  • Choose the right type of data visualisation for your data.
  • Keep it simple and easy to read.
  • Use colour effectively to highlight important data points.
  • Provide context and explain the data insights.

Examples

Let’s say you are a marketer who wants to present the performance of your latest email marketing campaign to your team.

You have data on the open rate, click-through rate, and conversion rate of the campaign.

You could use a bar chart to compare the open rate, click-through rate, and conversion rate across different email campaigns.

This would allow you to easily identify which campaigns performed the best and which ones need improvement.

Alternatively, you could use a line chart to show the trend of the open rate, click-through rate, and conversion rate over time.

This would allow you to see if there are any patterns or trends in the data.

Overall, choosing the right type of data visualisation can help you to effectively communicate data insights and improve your ability to make data-driven decisions.

Originally published at Smart Data Kit.
This publication may contain affiliate links to external websites.

--

--