Data Visualisation Vocabulary

An interactive reference guide to chart types, organised by the data relationship they best communicate. Select a category to explore, or describe your scenario below to get AI-powered recommendations.

Inspired by the FT Visual Vocabulary (Alan Smith et al.) & The Graphic Continuum (Jonathan Schwabish & Severino Ribecca)
Describe your data visualisation scenario
Tip: be specific about what story you want to tell, the type of data you have, and the audience. Press Enter to submit.

Visual Encoding — Perceptual Ranking

Not all visual encodings are created equal. This hierarchy, based on the research of Cleveland & McGill (1984) and extended by others, ranks how accurately humans can decode different visual channels. When designing charts, use encodings from as high in this ranking as possible.

Based on Cleveland & McGill (1984), Mackinlay (1986), and Munzner (2014)

MOST ACCURATE LEAST ACCURATE Position along a common scale Bar charts, dot plots, scatter plots — the gold standard for precise comparison Position along identical, non-aligned scales Small multiples, faceted charts — still accurate but comparison takes more effort Length Stacked bars, range bars, Gantt charts — comparing lengths without a shared baseline Direction / Slope Slopegraphs, trend lines — judging angle of change Angle Pie charts, donut charts — harder to compare than length Area Bubble charts, treemaps, proportional symbols — we underestimate area differences Shading & Saturation Heatmaps, choropleths — good for patterns, poor for precise values Colour Hue Categorical only — useful for labelling groups, not for encoding quantities Choose encodings as high in this ranking as possible. The higher the encoding, the faster and more accurately your readers can decode quantitative values.
Explore the full chart vocabulary below, organised by data relationship.
Data Visualisation Vocabulary Reference Guide · Sources: FT Visual Vocabulary, The Graphic Continuum by Jon Schwabish & Severino Ribecca, and data visualisation best practices