Selecting a chart

Selecting the right chart requires determining the key purpose of the chart and tailoring it to your audience’s needs.

Start by understanding the chart types available in our system. Once you’re familiar, you can select a chart design from our collection of examples by defining the key insight your chart should provide, and determining the focus elements. Finally, optimize your chart’s design to direct attention to the most important information.

Understand the chart types

Chart types refer to the broad categories of visual representations used to display data. Each chart type is best-suited for particular kinds of data analysis or insights. Charts help users understand and interpret data by leveraging simplified visual representations that highlight patterns and relationships.

To learn more about each chart type visit the Charts guidelines.

Note: Our guidelines currently only include these charts: Bar chart, dumbbell plot, line chart, and heatmap. You can explore our full library of chart components in the latest release of Visa Chart Components (VCC).

Selecting a chart

Each chart type in our library includes specific examples which are adaptations created to solve real-world business problems. These work like templates or starter chart designs that include modifications that tailor the chart for specific data analysis tasks, or to emphasize particular aspects of the data.

Use the insight and focus categories on our Examples index page to select a chart variation that is best suited for your user’s analysis needs.

Step 1: Choose a key insight category

Insights refer to the high-level purpose of a chart, and the type of analysis it enables. Start by identifying the primary insight category of the chart, based on the type of question that it should enable users to answer.

Step 2: Determine the focus

After you’ve selected an insight category, narrow down the examples by determining the key focus element of the chart. Focus elements refer to the specific data points, trends, patterns, or areas in a chart that are emphasized to make it easier for users to understand the key insights from the data.

Three key focus areas that can be highlighted or emphasized: A specific category, within a dataset, and values relative to a threshold. The sections below illustrate how our chart examples have been customized to emphasize different focus elements.

Highlight a category

Direct the user’s focus to a primary category, as illustrated in the Category share of total heatmap example.

Highlight values above a threshold

Direct the user’s focus to values above a specific threshold, as illustrated in the Compare trend to benchmark bar chart example.

Highlight high and low values

Direct the user’s focus to the highest and lowest values, as illustrated in the Trend with categories dumbbell plot example.

Step 3: Refine the chart

Once you’ve chosen a chart example that works well for your use case, you can refine it to ensure it’s tailored to your audience’s needs. Use the following guidelines to help reduce distracting information and draw attention to the key elements of the chart.

Reduce distracting information

To establish a clear visual focus, determine what elements only provide details or supporting information. This includes chart elements like gridlines, axes or axis elements, and data labels.

• Create a clear visual focus by limiting distracting information and only adding visual details as need.
• Avoid using chart elements that convey similar or repeated information to help limit visual noise.
• Start by using one neutral color for all data points. This gives you a more flexible starting point for directing attention where it’s needed.
• Use color encoding to provide additional information and context, where necessary. Follow guidelines for Color palettes (internal only) to make full use of our data visualization color palettes.

Direct attention

Once you have a simplified chart by reducing distracting elements, you can reintroduce visual emphasis to help users focus on the most important information in your chart.

To direct attention to the right part of the chart, consider the user’s key task: What mental steps do they need to take to answer the key question? Determining the task type can help you choose what information to emphasize.

For more information about visual analysis tasks, reference the Data Representation Pillar of our Data Experience Critique Framework