Comparison
Which is bigger or smaller?
Revenue by region, performance against target, product rankings.
Use: Bar or column chart
Pick the right visual. Design the page. Choose the colours.
A short, practical guide to delivering report visuals that people read and act on. No theory for its own sake: each page tells you what to do, what to avoid, and why.
10-second rule
If a reader cannot say what a page is telling them within ten seconds, the page is not finished.
Start here
Three decisions shape every report. Take them in this order.
-
1
Pick the visual
Every chart answers one of six questions. Name the question first, then choose the chart that answers it best.
Chart selector → -
2
Design the page
One story per page, headline numbers top-left, six to eight visuals at most. Layout is where most reports fail.
Report layout guide → -
3
Choose the colours
Grey for context, one accent for the point, and a palette that still works for colour-blind readers.
Colour palettes →
What are you trying to show?
Every chart answers one of six questions. Pick yours and the chart type follows.
Trend
How is this changing over time?
Monthly sales, traffic growth, seasonal patterns.
Use: Line chart, Area chart
Correlation
Are these two things related?
Price against demand, marketing spend against sales.
Use: Scatter plot
Distribution
How is the data spread out?
Customer ages, order values, response times.
Use: Histogram
Composition
What makes up the whole?
Market share, budget breakdown, category mix.
Use: Pie or donut, Waterfall
Ranking
What is the order from best to worst?
Top salespeople, product performance, league tables.
Use: Sorted bar, Funnel chart
Also in the guide: KPI cards, tables and matrices, small multiples, maps, heatmaps.
Tools
Chart selector
Three questions, then a shortlist of charts with live previews.
Open →Common mistakes
Twelve mistakes seen in real dashboards, each with a fix.
Open →Free resources
Chart-selection cheat sheet, layout checklist, palette reference. No email required.
Download →Chart quiz
Seven questions to test your instincts on chart choice.
Open →Simple beats busy
Two report pages built from the same data. One can be read in ten seconds.
Keep it simple
- Clear hierarchy: the eye knows where to start
- Limited palette, one accent colour
- Whitespace separates sections
- One message per section
Too much noise
- Too many colours compete for attention
- Shadows and effects add noise, not meaning
- No focal point, so nothing gets read
- Reader gives up before finding the point
Know your audience
The same data needs a different page for each reader.
Executives
What they care about
Big-picture trends, growth, risk, and customer satisfaction. Decisions about strategy and resources.
How to deliver
Headline KPIs, a simple trend, a forecast. Implications and recommendations, not detail.
Key question: what decision does this enable?
Operators
What they care about
Day-to-day performance, process efficiency, bottlenecks. Metrics they can act on now.
How to deliver
Detailed breakdowns, alerts, near-real-time data. Tables, heatmaps and drill-through.
Key question: what needs fixing today?
Customers
What they care about
Clear information about their service or product. Transparency without jargon.
How to deliver
Plain language and simple visuals. Progress bars, cards, status indicators.
Key question: how does this affect them?