An Ultimate Guide to Create a Beautiful Chord Diagram

Data is a commodity. Just like any other commodity, the value placed on data cannot be over-emphasized. This makes data the most valuable asset in the world. After all, data gives birth to useful information. In this blog you will learn what is a Chord Diagram? And How to Create Chord Diagram in few steps with coding.

In Data visualization, the use of the chord diagram is quite popular and attractive to many digital marketers and data analysts. What then is a Chord diagram?

What is a Chord Diagram?

A chord diagram represents the flows or connections between entities known as nodes. A typical chord diagram has a standard circle. The entities or elements are then arranged as points around the outer circle.

The relationships and connections between the entities are then shown using smaller arcs and curves in the inner circle. The connections between these entities are used to display that they share something in common.

How to Create Chord Diagram in few steps?

Let me show you how to create Chord Diagram with the help of an example. Now, let me show you how Jasmine used ChartExpo to analyze hospital data.

Jasmine is a data analyst who just got contacted by the human resource manager of Richie Hospital. Richie Hospital was surveying their teams. They wanted to see how well their teams have been behaving with the patients and visitors at the hospital.

Survey forms were printed to rate individual teams. Every team had a specialized form for them to be rated by patients and visitors who had contact with them. The patients and visitors would therefore drop their comments concerning the specific team.

This survey was conducted three times within one year. Jasmine received the survey answers as data. She was then assigned the task of analyzing and visualizing the data. After inspecting and organizing the data, she was torn as to which data visual would be suitable for the representation of her data.

After much thought, she came up with the idea of dividing this survey into three different main categories. Each of these categories will then have subcategories. After she sorted the main categories according to the number of respondents per team, she got stuck. She had no coding experience and she was running out of time.

She then turned to research where she found ChartExpo as her best option to analyze data on Google Sheets. After installing the add-on, here is what she did. She prepared the data in a table:

Then, she opened her Google Sheets and organized her data in it.

She filled the column with the header names and values as:

Topics:

Which represents different departments of hospital.

Subtopics:

Which represents different area of expertise or incident name.

ChordColor:

How the sentiment will appear, green for positive and red for negative.

TopicValue:

This represents how many total reviews or values came under the value first column i.e Topic. E.g Emergency got 7 Negative and 5 Neutral that is why 12 is coming for this data.  In visualization length of blue color is being represented by this value.

SubtopicValue:

Final numerical value which represents number of counts of specific feedback.

Here is how she drew her chart:

Jasmine clicked first on ‘Sentiment Analysis charts’ and then on ‘Chord Chart’. Then, she selected her Sheet Name.

Next, she clicked on ‘Add new metric’. She then selected the column in which she had inputted numerical values.

She then clicked on Add new dimension and selected the ‘Topic’ column. Afterwards, she added the ‘subtopic’ column and the ‘sentiment’ column.

She got the following result.

Insights: The Story the Chart tells

Jasmine looked at her chart and was able to completely capture the thoughts of the patients and visitors at Hospital. The chart showed the general opinions of the people towards the teams at the hospital.

For the chart, she decided to use blue for service-related results. She used green to depict positive reviews. She then used red color to depict the negative reviews and gray for neutral reviews.

She saw that the Anesthetic department had total 36 reviews and the administration department had 4 positive reviews. From the chart, we can also observe that the Cardiology department had 7 negative reviews under the emergency.

From the respondents at the Pharmacy, there were 8 negative reviews. The Radiotherapy Department also had 8 negative reviews for renal and 2 positive whereas urology had total 10 positive.

She used the grey color to show neutral reviews.

You can see that this data visual self describes its insights. A person with no idea about data visualization can understand this chart.

Colors can be used to group the data into different categories. This helps in making comparisons and distinguishing the different groups that the entities belong to.

It also provides you a way to visualize your dataset in an aesthetic, appealing, and informative manner. It will also show you the direct relationships between different element categories.

The ability to gather, organize, understand, process, extract value from, visualize, and communicate data is a skill that is already so valuable. It is then easy to predict that this skill will be the next big thing in the coming years.

According to research, the human brain is not equipped enough to comprehend raw and unorganized information. Hence, the need for data visualization. Before we go too far, let us see what data visualization really is.

Data visualization is a graphical representation of information and data, which can be achieved by using visual elements like charts, graphs, tables, and maps. You will therefore agree with me that we need charts to properly analyze and communicate data findings. This will help you to identify patterns and trends in order to gain insights and to enable better decision-making.

The use of graphical representations to visualize your data will make your clients glued to your brand and think the best about you. Visualization tools will give you access to user-friendly and beautiful features that represent your data in an impressive and expressive way.

Next up; the reasons why we need data visualization.

Why do We Need Data Visualization?

Imagine yourself as a content writer who manages social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. You want your post to be read by as many people as possible. Therefore, you will need to add lots of interesting visuals and theme colors to highlight the social media pages.

Most times, we are all bored of words that are written in black and white. Data represented with visuals will immediately attract more attention and are easier to comprehend. With the help of descriptive graphics and dashboards, difficult information can be obvious and understandable.

This is because most people are visual learners. Hence, for your data to be clearly understood by your audience, which may be your colleagues, partners, or clients, all boring charts should be turned into adorable and attractive graphics.

Here are some extra points that will show you the importance of data visualization in analyzing and gaining insights from your raw data.

1. The eye is the number one organ by which 90% of individuals get information from their immediate environment.
2. 50% of the human brain neurons take part in visual data processing.
3. Images boost the wish of your audience to read up a text by 80%. You will also agree that the human species remembers 10% of what you hear, 20% of what you read, and 80% of what you see.

This clearly shows that you can have first place in your client’s mind with the use of amazing data visuals every single time.

The Principles of Effective Data Visualization

The first thing you need to do to be successful in data visualization is to ascertain that all your information is accurate and consistent. This will help you to decide the best graph that you should use to pass the right message to your audience at the right time.

Below are three key principles for data visualization:

1. Decide on the right graphics, this largely depends on your goal and intent for the visual. For example, a visual to measure opinion on a subject will be different from a visual that shows changes in page views over time.
2. Ascertain that the information on your data visual suits your audience.
3. Employ the appropriate designs for the visual, using the perfect design themes and colors will give you an edge among competitors.

Following these basic principles will guarantee you a smooth sail in the journey of data visualization. However, not following any of these principles could mean an overly cluttered visual, a wrong inference, or an altogether incorrect graphic.

The Best Software to Create Chord Diagram

After learning about data visualization, its importance, and how to make the most out of it, you must now be on the lookout for the best software for you. Not just for something that is self-acclaimed best. You are searching for something that can project your data and blow your clients away.

Well, here is the end to the search. In this article, I will feed your curiosity and tell you the best intuitive software for creating your chord diagram.

This software requires almost zero learning to use. It is very fast and efficient. It also allows you to export your data visuals in a jpg or png format.

The name of this glorious tool for all your data visuals is ChartExpo. Right now, I am going to take you on a tour of what ChartExpo is and how it can work for you. Come on.

Chord Diagram in ChartExpo for Google Sheets

If you are thinking about what is perfect for you, it is ChartExpo. Take it from me. ChartExpo is simply the best Data visualization software for your brand.  ChartExpo has over 50 visuals that you can use regardless of the intent of your data visual or the design you want.

It is specifically designed to meet the requirements of visualization and it is available on your regular spreadsheet tools like Google Sheets and Excel. ChartExpo also has an edit option with which you can select and change the properties, design, and theme of your visualization.

Many PPC marketers have also used ChartExpo as a powerful data visualization tool to get clear opinions and decisions based on results from their visuals. It can take in any data and produce the required data visualization output with few clicks.

It improves your data into insights that can help you drive your actions in the future. Now, let us see practical ways that ChartExpo is used.

Advantages of Good Chord Diagram or Chord Graph

You do not want your client to look at your spreadsheet and their eyes go all blurry with a strong urge to take a nap. I’m kidding. However, it is not something you want to happen. This brings us to the relevance of visualization in your business.

Good chord visualizations will help you to make informed decisions faster. It will also reduce the stress of analyzing data by looking through several pages of statistics in Google Sheets. Instead, chord visualizations help you to see the touchpoints that are higher than others thereby helping you to easily sum up data.

It can also help your team or client to better comprehend and retain the information that has been presented visually.

How to Choose the Best Types of Chart for your Data

One major thing to do before analyzing your data is to pick the correct chart type to suit your data. To do this, you must understand your data type and the purpose and intent for analysis. There are different aims for data analysis which includes:

• Comparison of two or more data points.
• To show data distribution.
• To show structures with the help of data
• To find the connections between different data points.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

As easy as using ChartExpo to analyze and visualize data can be, it is highly expedient that you avoid common pitfalls when using the software for the first time.

1. While it is important to have your major groups ordered around the circle, you must also avoid having too many arc crossings on your chart.
2. You must also be careful of over-cluttering as this makes your figures unreadable. This can be easily done by dismissing weak connections.
3. With Chord diagrams you can get your viewers intrigued. However, you must give a corresponding explanation to tell the data’s story when presenting your results.

Wrap Up

Here is where we have to end this tour around ChartExpo for Google Sheets. In this short ride, you have seen the all-around importance of visualizing your data. You have also seen that data visualization helps you to make your reports more visually appealing, comprehensible, and retainable.

We also checked out one of the visualizations available on ChartExpo. The Chord diagram. The Chord diagram simply shows the interrelationships between different entities.

It helps you to compare the similarities within a dataset or between different groups of data. Whenever you have a dataset and you intend to show relationships or similarities between the elements of your data, the Chord diagram is the right visual.

Chord data cannot be easily represented using basic tools like Google Sheets charts. Therefore, using ChartExpo will help you to make the most out of your chord data just like our friend Jasmine.

With the Chord diagram in ChartExpo, you can also get valuable insights to make decisions on improvements. This also puts your brand on the good side of clients and business owners. So, what are you waiting for?

It’s time to get your ChartExpo on!