Updated April 17, 2023
All About Data Visualization Types
Data visualization helps you make sense of data faster and observe patterns you would not have noticed otherwise. The data is critical to measure the performance of websites and online solutions and gain valuable insight into markets, consumers, industries, trends, or new products and services. But the rub is that raw data visualization tools examples are complicated to understand.
Data Visualization Types:
We live in an age where large amounts of data visualization tools and examples are constantly generated by user interactions on websites and with online services. It would be best to visualize the data visualization tools examples to get something that others can understand and use.
Several data visualization tools and software are available online and on the shelf. Some solutions feature data visualization benefits as just one of their features, while others focus entirely on data visualization benefits. Both serve different purposes, but this particular list of data visualization benefits categorizes them by their user base. This list covers the best tools for developers requiring coding knowledge and for non-developers not requiring coding.
Data Visualization Types For Developers
These types are meant for developers who know data visualization benefits JavaScript, HTML, CSS, and SVG. Here is a look at the best of them:
1. JS
Data-Driven Documents or D3. JS is one of the most popular and essential data visualization benefits in the industry right now. For go for good reason, CSS, HTML, and SVG for rendering some clever and exciting diagrams and chart designs. This tool can handle any visualization; it has several features, looks good, and has an easy and intuitive user interface. Most importantly, it is open-source and accessible for all.
Although D3 does not come with pre-built charts, it does come with a gallery that presents the possibilities of data visualization importance with D3. However, this tool is far from perfect. For one, it is a tool for serious developers and can take some time to learn. Apart from its steep learning curve, D3 is compatible only with browsers above Internet Explorer 9. Look elsewhere if you want to present your charts on an older browser.
D3.JS is a preferred data visualization importance among developers for several reasons. Unlike other libraries that lack graphics flexibility and need plugins, it works on the web. Apart from its compatibility with new technologies, D3 is also preferred for its great documentation, communities, examples, and accessibility. It does come with disadvantages, though. DOM manipulation can be really slow for large entry numbers, making D3 less suitable for large datasets. SVG also suffers from performance limitations when dealing with large element quantities.
2. FusionCharts
FusionCharts makes this list of top ten data visualization important for its extensive collection of maps and charts, with close to 1,000 maps and 100 chart times. With so many options, you should be able to find all the designs that you need right from the start. In addition, the software supports modern browsers and older ones from IE 6. The tool supports XML and JSON data formats, and charts can be exported in PDF, JPEG, PNG, and SVG. There are several live demos and business dashboards available as well if you want some great ideas for visualizing and presenting your data visualization types.
FusionCharts’ maps and charts work on all major platforms and devices and are heavily customizable. The caveat here is that it is neither free nor cheap. It comes with a pretty high price tag, but you can opt for an available free trial if you’d like and buy the software later on.
FusionCharts offers interactive JavaScript/HTML5 charts, and it comes with visual editing, clickable legend keys, easy scrolling and zooming jQuery charts, and great tooltips. It also comes with easy drill-down and extensive documentation. It is also pretty quick to make charts. HTML5 charts can be made in less than 15 minutes with a copy-and-paste installation and great demos. FusionCharts comes with several components with different features, such as FusionCharts XT, FusionMaps XT, PowerCharts XT, and FusionWidgets XT.
3. Charts.JS
From the massive FusionCharts, we move to a much smaller Chart. JS open-source library supports line, doughnut, pie, polar, radar, and bar chart types. Despite its small size and collection, this tool collects all the charts and visualization types needed for small to medium-sized projects. FusionCharts and other more extensive libraries and visualization tools make sense if you have a large and complex application, but Chart.JS should do quite well for everything else.
Chart.JS renders charts with the HTML5 canvas element, so the charts use a flat design and are responsive. It has been gaining popularity recently among open-source charting libraries, and for a good reason.
Since Chart.JS uses Canvas, you must include a polyfill to support older browsers, like ExplorerCanvas. The library does not have dependencies, and its already small size can be lowered even further when minified, concatenated, gzipped, and stripped of the core chart types you do not need. For instance, you can only include the core and pie modules to draw a pie chart for your website. The charts are also responsive and adapt based on the available screen space. Chart.JS comes with clear and extensive documentation for easily using its basic and advanced features.
4. Google Charts
Now let’s get back to the heavy hitters. No list of data visualization types would be complete without a mention of Google Charts. This tool renders charts in SVG and HTML5 for cross-browser compatibility and portability across Android and iOS platforms. It also includes VML to support an older version of IE.
Google Charts offers several charts covering the most common ones, including gauges, pie, area, and bar types. It comes with Google’s trademark user-friendliness and flexibility.
When compared to D3.JS, Google Charts cannot have as much of a variety of graphs. But it is great in the graphs that it does create. It also has an easier-to-use API than D3, where you must build every bar, line, and axis from scratch. It can be picked up even by developer novices.
Google Charts also has a huge plus point over D3 in that it can export charts to PNGs directly. However, it lacks the level of customization that D3 offers. Also, some Google Charts do not support large data visualization importance sets. In addition, adding other DOM functions like zoom and click parts for any graph of your choice is impossible.
Overall, Google Charts is a good choice for those who want simple and basic graphs without wasting a lot of ties.
5. Highcharts
This is another significant data visualization type in the market right now. Highcharts offers a vast range of maps and charts out of the box, just like FusionCharts, but it also provides a stock charts package rich with features called Highstock.
Highcharts can export charts to PDF, SVG, JPG, and PNG, and it has a demo section that lets you check out the chart types it has to offer. This is also a free visualization tool for personal and non-commercial use, but you do need to purchase a license to use it in commercial applications.
Highcharts are written in pure JavaScript, making adding interactive charts to your web application or website easier. It supports line, area, spline, bar, pie, column, scatters, and several other chart types.
This tool works on all browsers, including the iPhone and iPad. With the non-commercial free version, you can use Highcharts to make graphics for a personal, non-profit, or school website. Under free or paid licenses, you can download and edit the source code independently. Highcharts is based solely on native browser technologies. It does not require client-side plugins like Java or Flash; you do not have to install anything on your server. You only need two JS files to run: the Highcharts.JS core and the MooTools, Prototype, or jQuery framework.
6. Leaflet
The leaflet has been developed mainly for mobile-friendly and interactive apps. Like many tools in this list, it is also open source. Moreover, it is tiny at just 33kb but comes with several features to make maps. Leaflet uses CSS3 and HTML5 to render maps and can work on all major mobile and desktop platforms. Its developer, Vladimir Agafonkin, said Leaflet was designed for simplicity and usability. You can also find several plugins to add features like heat maps, animated markers, etc.
The leaflet is a leading open-source JavaScript library to make mobile-friendly and interactive maps with most of the mapping features developers need. It can be extended with many plugins and has a well-documented API with readable, simple source code.
It is not the best tool for everyone; instead of focusing on essential things. It comes out of the box with tile layers, WMS, markers, popups, vector layers, image overlays, interaction features, and GeoJSON. Its interactive features include scroll wheel zoom, drag panning with inertia, zooms to an area, marker dragging, and more. Visual elements include zoom and pan animation, retina resolution support, and tile and popup fade animation. Its customization features include CSS3 popups and controls, image-based and HTML-based markers, custom map projections, and more.
7. Digraphs
Dygraphs is another open-source charting library that uses JavaScript and can handle large datasets. It is also highly customizable, flexible, and fast. The library works in all the major browsers, and an active community backs it. However, it isn’t suitable for every project. It has a highly defined and niche use case, but it works in most cases when you have to handle large datasets.
Dygraphs are fast and flexible, enabling users to interpret and explore dense data visualization types sets. It creates interactive charts with Zoom, clicks8 and drag, and other functions. This tool can handle large datasets with millions of points without being bogged down. Zoom, mouse-over, and pan functions are available out of the box and by default. It offers strong support for error bars or confidence intervals. Digraphs are also highly customizable, and you can use custom callbacks and options to make Dygraphs do almost anything. It is highly compatible and works in all major browsers.
Data Visualization Types for Non-Developers
For those of you who want to present data without coding, there are several tools for non-developers. Here are the best ones.
1. Datawrapper
Datawrapper is different from the rest of the data visualization types in this list because it is online. You can make an interactive chart by uploading data visualization importance from a CSV file or directly pasting data visualization types into their respective fields. Datawrapper can generate lines, bars, or other chart types. It is a popular tool among news organizations and reporters who want to embed live charts in their articles and reports. The tool is pretty easy to use and produces an effective result.
2. Tableau
Tableau is one of the most popular data visualization types among non-developers. Tableau Public supports several charts, maps, graphs, and other types of graphics. It is also free to use, with the resulting charts being easy to embed into a web page. However, the charts and graphics available via Tableau are also available in similar tools. The free version does come with a massive footer branding that may not work well with your presentation. A paid version is available, so you can opt for that if you want results without the footer.
3. Infogram
Infogram is another online tool that lets you create charts and infographics. You can use the free version with restricted features or opt for two paid options, including over 200 maps, icons library, private sharing, and more. Infogrames has an easy user interface, and its charts, including the basic versions, are pretty well-designed. However. It does add a large logo when you embed interactive charts on the web page using the free version.
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This is a guide to Data Visualization Types. Here we discuss the introduction and different data visualization types for developers and non-developers. You can also look at the following articles to learn more –
