37 Types of Data Visualization and When to Use Them

When we have PETA-Bytes or TERA-Bytes of data, it is hard to understand the rows and columns. The alternative way is the graphical way which is easy to understand. The terminology of the data representation in graphical form is called Data Visualization. There are more than 37 types of data visualization charts. Nine Core types of visualization under other types come in. You can learn more about the same in Business Intelligence and Visualization classes. 

Types of Data Visualization

1. Comparison Visualization

A chart, graph, or diagram that displays the differences or similarities between values is a typical kind of data visualization. These types of visual charting are excellent for displaying comparisons in your data. 

• Bar and column charts

Using rectangular bars with heights or lengths proportional to the values they represent, a bar chart or bar graph displays categorical data. Both a vertical and a horizontal bar plot are possible. A column chart is another name for a vertical bar graph. 

• Population pyramids 

A population pyramid is a graphic representation of how people are distributed across age groups and sexes in a population (usually that of a nation or region of the world); it typically has the shape of a pyramid when the population is expanding. Males are often depicted on the left and females on the right, and their numbers may be expressed either as percentages of the entire population or as absolute figures. The age of a certain population can be represented as a pyramid. The distribution of a population's ages overall provides information on a species' potential for reproduction and chances of survival in ecology. Population density is the number of people per square meter of land.

• Radial chart

A radial chart, often known as a circle bar chart, compares various categories using circular shapes. In essence, radial charts are bar charts that are shown using a polar coordinate system as opposed to a cartesian one. Simple bar charts are preferable for comparing values, while radial charts can be utilized for aesthetic purposes.

2. Pattern Visualizations

Based on the data gathered, several types of data visualizations graphs show forms or patterns. 

• Line Graph 

The line graph of an undirected graph G is another graph L(G) in the field of mathematics known as graph theory that shows the relationships between G's edges. For each edge in G, create a vertex in L(G), and for every two edges in G that share a vertex, create an edge between those corresponding vertices in L. (G). 

• Area chart 

To illustrate how the numerical values of one or more groups vary over the course of a second variable, usually time, an area chart combines the line chart and bar chart. By including shading between the lines and a baseline, similar to a bar chart, an area chart can be distinguished from a line chart. 

• Scatter Plot 

A scatter plot is a particular kind of plot or mathematical diagram that displays values for typically two variables for a collection of data. It uses Cartesian coordinates. One more variable can be shown if the points are color-, shape-, or size-coded. The data are represented as a set of points, where each point's position on the horizontal axis is determined by the value of one variable and its position on the vertical axis by the value of the other variable. 

• Dendrogram 

A dendrogram is a diagram that depicts the relationship between things in terms of hierarchy. It is frequently produced as a byproduct of hierarchical clustering. A dendrogram is mostly used to determine how to assign objects to clusters. 

• Histogram 

The distribution of numerical data is roughly depicted by a histogram. Karl Pearson was the person who first coined the phrase. The first stage in creating a histogram is to "bin" the data range, or divide it into a series of intervals, and then count how many values fall into each interval. The bins are often defined as a series of discrete intervals that don't overlap. The bins must be close together and are frequently the same size. 

• Violin plot 

Numerical data can be plotted using a violin plot. With the addition of a rotated kernel density plot on either side, it is comparable to a box plot. Similar to box plots, violin plots also display the data's probability density at various values, often smoothed by a kernel density estimator. 

• Streamgraph 

Stacking area graphs that are shifted about a central axis to create a flowing, organic shape are known as streamgraphs. In a streamgraph, the layers are positioned to minimize their "wiggle," as opposed to a standard stacked area graph where the layers are placed on top of an axis. The layers are moved in a more formal way to minimize the total of the squared slopes of each layer, weighted by the area of the layer. Streamgraphs can only display data with positive values; they cannot display data with both positive and negative values.

3. Changes Visualizations

Particular kinds of data visualizations highlight price movements; they are most frequently seen in the stock market or financial industries. 

• Candlestick chart

A type of financial chart called a candlestick chart is used to show how the price of a security, derivative, or currency has changed over time. Each candlestick contains all four crucial pieces of information for that day: open and close in the thick body; high and low in the "candle wick." This makes it similar to a bar chart. Due to its high information density, it frequently depicts trade trends over brief periods of time, such as a few days or trading sessions.

4. Relationship Visualization

In addition to demonstrating definite correlations between two or more variables, data visualizations can highlight linkages and interconnections between the data. 

• Heat Map

A heat map is a type of data visualization that displays a phenomenon's size in two dimensions using color. The reader will receive clear visual clues about how the occurrence is clustered or fluctuates over space from the fluctuation in color, which may be by hue or intensity. The cluster heat map and the spatial heat map are two fundamentally distinct types of heat maps. In a cluster heat map, magnitudes are arranged into a matrix of fixed cell size, where the rows and columns represent discrete phenomena and categories. The sorting of the rows and columns is deliberate and somewhat arbitrary, with the intention of suggesting clusters or depicting them as they are identified through statistical analysis.

• Radar Chart 

A Radar Chart, also known as a Spider Chart, Radial Chart, or Web Chart, is a graphical way to display multivariate data in the form of a two-dimensional chart with three or more quantitative variables depicted on axes starting at the same point. 

• Tree diagram

A tree diagram is what? Simply put, a tree diagram is a method of displaying an event flow. Tree diagrams are very helpful in probability because they clearly and simply capture all potential outcomes. 

• Network diagram

A map or schematic representation of a computer network is called a network diagram. It demonstrates how each employee connects to a company's network or server. The network diagram shows how events and project activities are connected by a series of linked boxes and arrows.

• SWOT analysis 

Using SWOT analysis, a person or organization can determine its strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats in relation to project planning or competitive business environments. Situational analysis or situational evaluation are other names for it. This method can be used to assess the strategic position of a variety of companies and is intended for use in the early phases of decision-making processes. It aims to pinpoint the internal and external elements that are advantageous and detrimental to attaining the goals of the project or enterprise. In order to make a SWOT analysis helpful and discover their competitive advantage, users frequently ask and respond to questions to provide meaningful information for each area.

5. Proportions Visualization

Size and area components are sometimes used in data visualizations to highlight differences or affinities between values.

• Bubble chart 

A bubble chart is a style of diagram that shows data in three dimensions. Each entity and the triplet (v1, v2, v3) of associated data is shown as a disc, where the xy position of the disc expresses two of the vi values and the size of the disc conveys the third. Relationships in society, the economy, medicine, and other branches of science can be better understood with the use of bubble charts. 

• Pie Chart 

One sort of graph that illustrates the information in the circular graph is a pie chart. It is a sort of graphical representation of data where the slices of pie depict the relative sizes of the data. A list of numerical and categorical variables is necessary for a pie chart. Pie in this context refers to the entire thing, and slices to its component portions.

• Donut chart

Donut charts, sometimes known as doughnut charts, are variations on pie charts with a hole in the middle that makes them resemble donuts, thus the name. Additional info may be displayed in this vacant slot.

• Progress Bar 

The progression of a lengthy computer process, such as a download, file transfer, or installation, is visualized using a progress bar, which is a graphical control element. On occasion, a written representation of the progress in % format is included with the visual. The idea can also be used for media players' "playback bars," which track the current point in a media file's runtime.

• Proportional area chart 

Quantitative data is presented graphically in an area chart or area graph. It is founded on a line graph. Colors, textures, and hatching are frequently used to accentuate the space between an axis and a line. An area chart is frequently used to compare two or more numbers.

• TreeMap 

Treemapping is a technique for showing hierarchical data using nested figures, typically rectangles, in information visualization and computing. Hierarchical (tree-structured) data is shown in treemaps as a collection of layered rectangles. The sub-branches of the tree are represented by smaller rectangles that are tiled onto the larger rectangle assigned to each branch of the tree. The area of the rectangle on a leaf node corresponds to a certain data dimension. The leaf nodes are frequently colored to display a different dimension of the data. One can frequently easily see patterns that would be challenging to identify in other ways, such as whether a specific color is particularly relevant when the color and size parameters are associated in some manner with the tree structure.

• Wordcloud 

Often used to display keyword metadata on websites or to visualize free-form text, a tag cloud is a visual representation of text data. Tags are often single words, and the font size or color of each one indicates its significance. The phrases are hyperlinked to the things connected to the tag when they are used as website navigation aids.

• Nightingale rose chart

Florence Nightingale, a statistician and medical reformer, is credited with using this graphic to illustrate the preventable military fatalities during the Crimean War. On a polar coordinate grid, Nightingale Rose Charts are depicted. This radial chart divides each category or interval in the data into equal parts. Depending on the value it represents, each segment's distance from the polar axis center varies. In order to plot the segment size and represent a larger value, each ring extending from the polar grid's center can be utilized as a scale. The main problem with Nightingale Rose Charts is that any value increases are disproportionately shown in the outer segments due to their higher area size.

• Waterfall chart 

An example of data visualization that aids in comprehending the cumulative impact of successively introduced positive or negative values is the waterfall chart. These intermediate values may be based on categories or on time. Due of the columns appearing to be suspended in midair, the waterfall chart is also referred to as a flying bricks chart or a Mario chart. It is frequently referred to as a bridge in the world of finance. In its client presentations, the strategic consulting company McKinsey & Company made waterfall charts widely used. Waterfall charts can become more complex by including numerous total columns and values that span the axis. Extreme enough increases and decreases can lead the cumulative total to fall above and below the axis at different times.

6. Range Visualization

Use a data visualization that can display certain ranges of data when you want to highlight the variances between an upper and lower limit on a scale.

• Error Bar

mistake. The word "error" in the name refers to a range or spread of data that shows inherent uncertainty rather than necessarily a mistake. This could be anything from a standard error to a confidence interval.

• Bullet Graph 

When you need to tie this data to a qualitative range and compare one value, which is represented by a horizontal bar, to another value, which is represented by a vertical line, you should use a bullet graph. Often used to show performance data, bullet graphs operate similarly to bar graphs. 

• Gantt chart 

Since it lists activities or tasks together with their duration over time, a Gantt chart is frequently used while discussing project management. This displays the start and end times of each activity. A Gantt chart is perfect for planning and estimating how long a project might take in its entirety.

7. Geographical Visualization

Using a map to display data across a specific geographic area is another well-liked method of data visualization. 

• Bubble Map

A bubble map makes use of circles across a particular geographic area, much like a choropleth map and a bubble chart. Depending on the size or value of the dataset, the circle's area or size will change proportionally.

• Choropleth Map 

A choropleth map is comparable to a heat map, except in these data visualizations, a geographic map is shaded according to the data. When comparing a dataset by a particular geographic location, they work well. When utilizing a choropleth map, color is important since different shades of color are utilized to depict different amounts of data. 

8. Conceptual Visualization

Use a data visualization that can graphically demonstrate or explain a notion when you need to. 

A flowchart is a diagram that shows the order in which choices and steps must be taken within a certain process. Each process step is denoted by a distinct shape that is connected to other steps by interconnected lines and arrows.

• Brainstorm 

A mind map sometimes referred to as brainstorming, is a visual representation of ideas, phrases, pictures, or concepts and their connections. They are frequently used as a general study tool, to organize knowledge, and to categorize concepts. 

• Funnel 

Values are displayed using a funnel to show them decreasing with time. The name refers to the morphology of the animal, which has a large head that tapers to a small neck. 

9. Planning/Calendry Visualization

To represent trends or changes, specific types of data visualizations are used to show data and events over a predetermined time period.

• Calendar

Calendars are a useful tool to stay organized and on schedule, whether you have a physical calendar hanging on your wall or use an app on your phone. 

• Timeline

A timeline is a type of data visualization that shows a sequence of events. A timeline's principal objective is to use time-related data to illustrate a narrative or point of view on history. 

• TimeTable

A timetable is a vital necessity when it comes to a management tool that can be used to schedule events, projects, and actions.

• Spiral plot 

Time-based data is shown in spiral plots along a spiral. Starting in the middle, the graph moves outward. These are frequently employed to display vast amounts of data, which typically depict a trend over an extended period of time. Each interval can be associated with a particular time period using color. Each day of the month would be a distinct hue, for instance, if statistics throughout a month were being displayed.

Tools for Data Visualization

• PowerBI 

Use the unified, scalable platform for self-service and enterprise business intelligence (BI) to connect to and display any data. This platform is simple to use and aids in gaining deeper data understanding. To know more visit Data Visualization | Microsoft Power BI 

• Tableau  

People can visualize and comprehend data with Tableau. Our visual analytics tool is revolutionizing how people approach problem-solving with data. Discover why businesses of all sizes rely on Tableau to make them more data-driven. To know more visit Business Intelligence and Analytics Software (tableau.com)

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Conclusion

To understand the hidden information inside the data, we are using data visualization methods. As per the data, we are using the appropriate graphs. To know more about it KnowledgeHut Business Intelligence and Visualization classes.