How to Choose the Right Chart

If you’re not sure which chart you should use to best represent your data, consider the questions below:

1. Do you want your chart to show a composition, a relationship, or a comparison?

• Composition: how various categories make up components of a whole (e.g. a breakdown of sales by product to see the contribution of each product to the total sales revenue). 
• Relationships: when you want to highlight the relationships between variables.
• Comparison: you want to show either a relative (not exact/precise) comparison, or a precise comparison between multiple categories, or visualize a trend in your data (e.g. comparing sales numbers by salesperson, or showing the trend of gas prices over time).

2. How many categories will you need to display on your chart?

3. Is it important to see exact values, or do you want a high-level view of the data (e.g. show a general trend or high-level comparison between categories)?

4. Is your data static, or do you want to see how the data has changed over time?

Once you've answered those questions, refer to the list below to see which chart options best fit your needs.

Suggested Charts for Various Use Cases

Goal: A chart that visually represents the breakdown of parts within a whole
Good Options:

• If you have 5 or fewer categories, use a Stacked Bar Chart or Stacked Column Chart
                           
       Stacked Bar Chart                                                                         Stacked Column Chart
  
  
  
• If you have 5-10 categories, consider using a Pie Chart.

                 Pie Chart

• Use a Stacked Area Chart if you have 5 or fewer categories and want to show changes occurring over a period of time.
  
         Stacked Area Chart

Goal: A chart that visualizes a trend rather than exact values
Good Options:

• Use a standard Line Chart if you want to see the exact data points and their fluctuations over time.
  
               Line Chart
  
  
• Use a Smooth Line Chart when you want to emphasize the overall trend of data, particularly if there are many data points.
  
               Smooth Line Chart
  
  
• Use an Area Chart for presenting accumulative value changes over time
  
            Non-Stacked Area Chart

Goal: A chart that shows the relationship between variables, and/or highlights outliers in the data set.
Good Options: 

• Use a Scatter Chart to show the relationship between 2 variables and/or identify outliers
  
           Scatter Chart
  
  
• Use a Bubble Chart to show the relationship between 3 variables and/or identify outliers
  
           Bubble Chart

Goal: A chart that highlights which factors are the largest contributors (e.g. most significant causes of a problem).

• Use a Pareto Chart
  
         Pareto Chart

Related Articles: 
Charts Overview
Non-Stacked Column Charts
Bar & Line Combo Charts
Stepped Area Charts