1.
Bar
Comparing things
like income?
Line
Get some lengthy
data like oil prices?
Area
Want to show contents
of e.g. exports?
Map
Need to show a
country comparison?
More
Choose yours!
Data Visualization 101

2.
One dimension Two dimensions Three+ dimensions
Bar
LineAreaPie Picto
Scatterplot
Bubble
Comparison Tendency/Relations
Comparison/
Relationships

3.
Categories
Value=length

4.
Most often the best choice. Good
to show differences in values that
don’t add up to 100%.
Poor choice for showing time-
series data, as the line charts
have a smoother representation.
Bar
Comparing things
like income?

5.
100°=28%
50°=14%
55° = 15%
55°=
15%
100° =
28%
3,6° = 1%

6.
Good for showing contrast when
two or three components of
something differ greatly in size.
Bad choice if you have more than
three variables or if their values
are similar in size.
Pie
Need to show a
country comparison?

7.
1 icon = x
7x 4x
6x
16x

8.
Works well with 2-3 groups of
people compared and when
differences are significant.
A line chart is a better option
with more than three groups and
when differences are small.
Picto
Need to show a
country comparison?

9.
Time
Value

10.
Line
Get some lengthy
data like oil prices?
Best choice for time-series data
and highlighting trends, with not
more than three sets per chart.
May be visually misleading when
attempting to show data that is
not based on time-series.
Line
Get some lengthy
data like oil prices?

11.
Time
Value+value

12.
Good to show how a certain
variable grows/drops relative to
others over a period of time.
Careful when choosing between
basic and stacked layouts, as
they give different impressions.
Area
Want to show contents
of e.g. exports?

13.
Variable1
Variable 2 None
Weak
Strong

14.
Good to find out how much one
variable depends on other e.g.
how strongly does it correlate.
Careful when choosing variables
that don’t correlate, as result can
be meaningless.
Scatter
Detect what is more
profitable

15.
Variable1
Variable 2
Volume
More 1
More 2
Less 1
More 2
More 1
Less 2
Less 1
Less 2

16.
The best to understand social,
economical, medical, and other
scientific relationships.
Make sure your audience can
read the chart.
Bubble
Compare values and
show relationships

17.
#InfogramStory
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