Choose a chart by the question it needs to answer. Comparing items? Use bars. Change over time? Use a line. Parts of a whole? Use a stacked bar or, for two or three parts, a pie. Relationship between two numbers? Use a scatter plot. Flows between stages? Use a Sankey. The rest of this guide covers the cases in between.
Every chart below is in the JFDI chart maker. Paste your data once and the gallery redraws all 130 chart types with it, putting the ones that fit your data’s shape first.
1. Comparing items
Chart
Use it when
Avoid when
Bar chart
Comparing a handful to a few dozen categories, especially with long names
Showing change over time
Column chart
Comparing a few categories, or a few time periods
Category names are long
Grouped bar or column
Comparing two or three series per category
More than about four series
Dot plot
Many categories with values close together
You need to show zero as a baseline
Lollipop chart
Like a bar chart, but lighter when bars are many
Values are negative and positive
Bullet chart
Actual against a target, with good/bad bands
The audience hasn’t seen one before
Slope chart
Who rose and who fell between two points in time
More than two points in time
Diverging bar chart
Values above and below zero, or a midpoint
Everything is on one side
Sort bars by value unless the categories have a natural order (age groups, months).
2. Change over time
Chart
Use it when
Avoid when
Line chart
Continuous change, many time points
You have only two or three points
Column chart
A few periods, or totals per period
Dozens of periods
Step chart
Values that change in jumps, such as prices or interest rates
Change is gradual
Area chart
Emphasising volume over time for one series
Comparing several series that overlap
Stacked area chart
A total and its components over time
Readers need to compare the middle layers
Line with final dot
Highlighting the latest value
—
Year-over-year line
Comparing the same months across years
Data isn’t seasonal
Fan chart
A forecast with widening uncertainty
You don’t have a range
Bump chart
Rankings rising and falling
The actual values matter more than ranks
Calendar heatmap
Daily values across a year, showing weekly patterns
Data is monthly
3. Parts of a whole
Chart
Use it when
Avoid when
Stacked bar or column
Parts of a total, compared across categories
More than about five parts
100% stacked bar
Shares, not totals, across categories
Totals matter
Pie or donut
Two or three parts of one whole
Parts are similar in size, or there are many
Waffle chart
Showing a percentage people can count, such as 37 in 100
Values need decimals
Treemap
Many parts, or parts within parts
Precise comparison matters
Sunburst
Hierarchies with two or three levels
More than three levels
Waterfall chart
How a start value becomes an end value
Values aren’t sequential changes
Pie or bar? Bars win for anything but two or three slices, because people compare lengths far more accurately than angles.
4. Distributions
Chart
Use it when
Avoid when
Histogram
The shape of one set of values
Comparing many groups
Box plot
Comparing medians and spread across groups
Audience isn’t used to them
Violin plot
Comparing the shape of distributions
Groups are small
Beeswarm plot
Showing every individual value, up to a few hundred
Thousands of points
Population pyramid
Two groups (such as men and women) by age band
Groups aren’t comparable
5. Relationships
Chart
Use it when
Avoid when
Scatter plot
Two numbers per item: is there a pattern?
Only a handful of items
Scatter with trend line
Showing the direction of a relationship
The relationship isn’t straight
Bubble chart
A third number shown by size
Bubbles overlap heavily
Connected scatter plot
How two numbers moved together over time
More than one or two series
Heatmap
Values across two categories, such as day × hour
Precise values matter
Quadrant chart
Sorting items into four groups, such as impact × effort