Choosing Chart Types

Using data visualization principles can help you to create clarity and provide meaning in your cards, but identifying which chart type best answers your business questions is just as critical.

Business Questions and Correlating Chart Types

The flowchart below can help you quickly identify which chart type would most effectively display your data by aligning it to the business question type.

The stacked bar chart allows you to quickly view and compare groups of different topic- and/or date-specific elements all at once.

The Pareto chart, often used in comparative and part-to-whole business questions, is based on the Pareto principle, which states that 80% of your revenue is generated by 20% of your consumers/customers.

This chart is designed to help you identify what that 20% is and which metrics or factors you need to look at to determine that group.

Unlike other chart types that show data directly, variance charts show the differences between two sets of data, such as actual versus budget or actual versus forecast

The lollipop chart is a variation on a bar chart that allows you to better emphasize the endpoints of your data. The thin lines allow you to fit more in a small area, with small circles that represent mouse-over points.

Comparative questions: How do related values compare?

Example business questions:

· What are the total sales by region?

· How much has each sales rep sold?

· How does our CSAT score compare to our competitors’?

Relationship questions: How does one data point affect another? Or how does an event score against multiple criteria?

Example business questions:

· How does the amount of sales training completed affect performance for sales people?

· Which accounts are most at risk of default?

Summary Questions: How close are we to the target?

Example business questions:

· Will the team meet sales targets this quarter?

· How do customers feel about the quality of our service?

Composition questions: How do subsets contribute to the whole?

Example business questions:

· What percentage of our revenue is from new customers vs. repeat business?

· What industries are our clients in?

· What products make up the $100k sales for this month?

Distribution questions: Where do things happen?

Example business questions:

· Where should we open a new store?

· How does the distance from the head office affect policy compliance?

· Does our regional marketing affect sales?

Stage Progress Questions: How much progress has been made?

Example business questions:

· How many potential customers are in each stage of the sales cycle?

· What was our sales pipeline at the beginning and end of the quarter, and what changed in between?

There are a number of different funnel card types in Domo. The type illustrated below, the stream funnel chart, is a cross between a funnel graph and a stacked area graph. Unlike pie-type graphs, the stream funnel graph allows you to include series data. For example, you can use a stream funnel graph to visualize data by campaign to see how much one contributing campaign is providing to the overall goal of your marketing efforts.

Waterfall charts are essentially Bar charts that show a series of profits and losses for a specified time period, with a summary bar showing the amount remaining at the end of the time period. Profits appear as green bars, losses appear as red bars, and start and summary bars appear as blue bars.

Gauges are simple charts that indicate progress towards meeting a target. A Progress Bar gauge is similar to a thermometer that "fills in" to show how close the current value is to the goal. This gauge type does not include ranges. This gauge type is similar to a Filled gauge, which also "fills in" to show the proximity of the current value to the target—the difference is that a Progress Bar gauge shows the value as a percentage, whereas a Filled gauge shows the actual value.

There are a number of effective charts that can visualize composition questions, including pie, funnel, gauge, area, and waterfall. These illustrate part-to-whole comparisons in questions and visualizations.

The Nautilus chart provides clarity above and beyond regular pie charts, as the layout makes it easier to distinguish small differences between slices.

Sankey charts are a type of flow diagram in which the thickness of the connecting lines between elements is proportional to the flow rate. They are usually used in scientific applications, especially physics, in which they often show energy inputs, useful output, and wasted output. However, they are often used in business as well, especially in showing cost breakdowns, inventory flows, web traffic, and more

A Tree Map displays the names of categories within rectangles of differing sizes. The sizes of the rectangles reflect the relative values of each category. Treemaps now have more dimensions to analyze your business.

Gauges are simple charts that indicate progress towards meeting a target. A face gauge uses an image of a face to show progress towards a goal. Three ranges are available—a red frowning face for "poor," an orange face with a blank expression for "fair," and a green smiling face for "excellent." A filled gauge is similar to a thermometer that "fills in" to show how close the current value is to the goal.

Face chart

Some single gauge charts are known as manager specials because they quickly identify whether action is required or not. The face chart is set up to conditionally display an appearance based on a criteria being met or unmet. There are three different visualizations for the face: green happy face, yellow neutral face, and red angry face.

For example, if you’re managing a call center consisting of several teams, and you've set certain criteria for unassigned open tickets, you can use the smile chart to identify when teams are meeting criteria or falling below it. So, if customers are experiencing a short wait time, the face stays green. If average response times fall below the criteria, the face changes to yellow or red.

Gauge Charts

The radial gauge and field gauge charts show where metrics move based on what you have indicated. In order to build this gauge chart, you need to specify criteria that indicates your ranges (from point A to point B is this color, and so on). Then your data moves the needle on the chart as it progresses through those ranges and gives you the feedback you want to see.

Gauge visualizations can provide one-glance answers for executives on data they may need to view repeatedly to track progress or validate success.

Relationship Questions

These charts illustrate specific relationship patterns between two or more variables. These options are usually more specialized because you can examine multiple criteria in the chart.

Scatter plot charts

A standard scatter plot graph has two value scales: one on the vertical Y axis and one on the horizontal X axis. Points can be assigned into specific groups by including series data in the graph.

Domo’s data science graphs, like the scatter plot, allow you to perform in-depth statistical analyses on your data. You can view this card as a whole, or you can highlight just one area of it and zoom in to get more details about that specific timeframe or series data.

Bubble charts

Similar to scatter plot graphs, bubble graphs have two value scales, and X and Y coordinate pairs are plotted on the graph. Bubble graphs are more complex than scatter plot graphs in that they include a bubble size dimension. For example, you can not only show the relationship between market spend and conversion, but also how much was spent on each resource.

Heat map

The heat map is also an effective option to use when answering relationship questions. Heat maps allow you to visualize relationships between data categories and draw attention to "hot spots" of activity and trends.

A best practice is to use a single color in varying shades to show the changes in data.

Dropdown Selector Card

With Dropdown Selector Cards, you can pick from a large list while requiring little space. This new chart type integrates seamlessly with Page Filters

Custom Charts

You can add custom charts via the following formats to your Domo instance in the Admin Settings or the Analyzer.

SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics) - Are an XML-based markup language for describing two-dimensional based vector graphics.
KML (Keyhole Markup Language) - Is a file format used to display geographic data in an Earth browser such as Google Earth.
GeoJSON - Is an open standard format designed for representing simple geographical features, along with their non-spatial attributes.
TopoJSON - Is an extension of GeoJSON that encodes geospatial topology and that typically provides smaller file sizes.
Shape - ESRI standard file format. Includes geospatial vector data (import Google Earth and export as KML).

Domo

Choose Chart Type

Choosing Chart Types

Business Questions and Correlating Chart Types

Comparative questions: How do related values compare?

Relationship questions: How does one data point affect another? Or how does an event score against multiple criteria?

Trending questions: How has a value changed over time?

Composition questions: How do subsets contribute to the whole?

Distribution questions: Where do things happen?

Stage Progress Questions: How much progress has been made?

Face chart

Gauge Charts

Relationship Questions

Scatter plot charts

Bubble charts

Heat map

Dropdown Selector Card

Custom Charts