How to make charts

Plain-language guides to the specialist chart types — when each one is the right call, how to read it, and how to build one.

Funnel chart
See where items drop off across sequential stages — sales pipelines, signup flows, checkout funnels.
Gauge chart
Show one number against a scale, with a colored zone that reads status at a glance.
Heatmap
Spot patterns across two dimensions — day × hour, product × region, correlations — where color intensity encodes each cell's magnitude.
Sankey diagram
Trace how a quantity splits, merges, and flows — traffic paths, budget allocation, energy flow — with ribbon widths proportional to volume.
Radar chart
Profile an entity across several comparable attributes — skill assessments, product comparisons, performance reviews — using overlapping shapes on shared axes.
Stacked bar chart
Show totals broken down into parts — monthly revenue by product line, headcount by department over time — when both the total and the composition matter.
Treemap
Show parts of a whole as nested rectangles, sized by value — budget allocation, portfolio composition, or anything where many categories add up to a meaningful total.