Chart Types and Selection

Chart type follows task

Bar and column charts

Line charts and trends

Area charts and the ambiguity of stacking

Scatter plots and correlation

Bubble charts and a third dimension

The limits of pie and donut charts

Histograms and distributions

Box plots and distribution summaries

Heatmaps and matrices

Treemaps and hierarchical area

Sankey diagrams and flow

Network graphs and relations

Parallel coordinates and multidimensional data

Small multiples

Tables versus charts

Matching chart type to the analytical question