Bar Charts

The graph below shows an example of a bar chart. The chart/graph shows the frequency on the y-axis and the data observation titles on the x-axis. Bar charts have a discrete range. Bar charts are usually scaled so that all the data can fit on the chart. Bars on the chart may be arranged in any order. Bar charts arranged from highest to lowest incidence are called Pareto charts. Normally, bars showing frequency will be arranged in chronological (time) sequence.
[graph id=”19″]

Categories Bar chart

A bar graph bars can be drawn horizontally or vertically to show comparisons among categories. Below is an example of a bar chart where the bars have been drawn vertically to show the comparisons among the catagoroes;

[graph id=”18″]

Bar graphs charts provide a visual presentation of categorical data. Categorical data is a grouping of data into discrete groups, such as months of the year, age group, shoe sizes, and animals. These categories are usually qualitative. In a column bar chart, the categories appear along the horizontal axis; the height of the bar corresponds to the value of each category.

Grouped bar chart

One axis of the chart shows the specific categories being compared, and the other axis represents a discrete value. Bar charts can also be used to represent grouped data where the bars are clustered in groups of more than one (grouped bar graphs). Below is another example of a Grouped bar chart.

[GRAPH]

Grouped bar graph usually present the information in the same order in each grouping.

Bar graphs can also be used for more complex comparisons of data with grouped bar charts and stacked bar charts. In a grouped bar chart, for each categorical group there are two or more bars. These bars are color-coded to represent a particular grouping. For example, a business owner with two stores might make a grouped bar chart with different colored bars to represent each store: the horizontal axis would show the months of the year and the vertical axis would show the revenue.

stacked bar chart

Alternatively, a stacked bar chart could be used. The stacked bar chart stacks bars that represent different groups on top of each other. The height of the resulting bar shows the combined result of the groups. However, stacked bar charts are not suited to datasets where some groups have negative values. In such cases, grouped bar charts are preferable.

[graph id=”21″]