Bar Chart

Best Practices

Bar charts are used to easily compare data among categories and between groups at a glance. They reveal patterns, trends, relationships and exceptions in data values that are not readily apparent from a table of values.

Use:

• When comparing categories
• When showing big changes in data

Don't Use:

• When showing small incremental changes

Additional guidance

• Outliers in Series Bar Data: If the data set includes one or more extreme outliers, the visualization can be difficult to process. If the variation can be seen only on a single bar and the rest are flat, do one of the following: Modify the data set to remove or adjust the outlier issue, split the chart into multiple charts, or select a different chart type.
• Confidence Intervals: Confidence intervals give an indication of the certainty of the dataset. You can configure the chart to show confidence intervals in the configuration tab. There is an example chart below.

Quick build notes

1. Select "Bar" as the Visualization Type.
2. Upload your data.
3. Type in the title and other text fields in the General tab.
4. In the Data Series panel, use the Add Data Series dropdown to select a column from your data that represents the values to display.
5. In the Date/Category Axis panel, use the Data Key dropdown to select a column from your data that represents the date or category information for the chart.
6. Select the Data Scaling Type appropriate to your Data.

Data suppression

You can suppress data in a bar chart for a number of reasons, including privacy concerns or preliminary data. Use the "Special Bar" section in the Data Series panel to select the value you want to display as suppressed with which symbol.

Note: For the best result with suppressed values, you will want to replace those values in your data with text like "SUP" or "ABC", rather than just relying on suppressing by numeric value in the visualization. This helps keep data private, as users can download the raw data.

Configuration options

The example visualizations below highlight options available for standard Bar charts. Key configuration selections are in the build notes section under each example.

For in-depth configuration information visit the Configuration Page.

Example time based Bar Chart

Selecting a data series in the legend isolates the series. You do not have to chart all the data series in the source file. Only three of the six series in the source data file were selected for the chart.

Sample Data: Bar Chart Example

Example categorical Bar Chart with large numbers

Bar charts also support non-time-based data. This example also shows how the COVE editor can truncate large numbers for a cleaner display.

Sample Data: Categorical Bar Chart with Large Numbers

Example Bar Chart with a highlighted value

To highlight a specific data point, a selection can be made in the Date/Category tab during configuration. The color of the highlight can be adjusted using a hexadecimal code.

Sample Data: COVE Chart Sample Data was used

Example Bar Chart with Confidence Intervals (CI)

High and low interval bounds in your source data (such as confidence intervals) can be displayed on your chart. In the Data Series panel, select the high and low data using the drop-down selectors.

To reduce visual clutter the legend for this chart was removed as this is a single-series chart. The Left Axis and Title can be used to inform the user of what is being compared.

Sample Data: Bar Chart with Confidence Intervals

Example Bar Chart with suppressed values

See the suppressed values section above for details.

Sample Data: Bar Chart with suppressed values

Example horizontal Bar Chart

A horizontal bar chart allows room for longer data labels and provides new layout options. The option to add numbers to the bars has also been selected from the General panel.

Sample Data: Horizontal Bar Chart