Whats the difference between diferent Charts?

Question

What are some good examples of a bar, line, pie, and radar chart using everyday examples

Answer 1

Bar charts are generally used for showing quantities. In the newspaper, you may see bar charts showing how many people are going to vote for a particular candidate.

Line charts generally show trends. The stock market uses line charts every day to show how the price of a particular stock or index has changed over a period of time.

A pie chart is used when you want to show how many of a particular group falls into a specific category. For example, in the voting example above, you might be able to use a pie chart as well - the entire pie represents the voting population, and the pie wedges represent the different candidates' totals.

A radar chart is tricky - it's kinda like a pie chart in shape, but uses lines extending from the center similar to a line chart. These would be used for plotting results from multiple categories, where the categories fall on the lines that extend from the center. This could be used in customer service surveys, for example - you could have different axes representing time on hold, satisfaction with the representative, courteousness, and ability to solve the problem, with numbers closer to the center being the higher ratings. The number of axes can vary, and it's usually better that the categories are something measurable on a numerical scale.