Upcoming Improvements to the Simple Chart Widget | XM Community

Upcoming Improvements to the Simple Chart Widget


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Starting March 31, we’re updating the visual design of simple chart widgets for all dashboard users. We want to ensure consistent information design and begin to add accessibility compliance so that we can eventually meet WCAG 2.0 AA. The first stage of accessibility is improving the colors and contrast ratios of the default charts.
Here are a few of the changes we’re introducing:

Line chart updates


Points are removed and will only be rendered on hover and when data needs a special indicator; for example, statistical significance, grouped for anonymity (EX), or low sample size (this last one is an upcoming feature).  This reduces visual noise in the line chart. 

Before


Before Example Chart

After


After Example Chart
We’ll also be introducing direct line labeling, a visualization technique based on the Gestalt principle of proximity – namely, the idea that viewers will perceive objects that are in close proximity to each other as being more meaningfully grouped or connected. Traditional legends undercut this principle, forcing viewers to draw connections often over much larger distances, resulting in increased cognitive effort.  Direct labeling also benefits any viewers that experience challenges interpreting colors, as establishing connections between lines and labels is no longer dependent on color only.
This option is available when chart legend is configured in position “right” as well as a new “inline” option to position labels inside the chart area.

Before – legend position “bottom”


Before Example Chart, Legend BottomBefore – legend position “right”


Before Example Chart, Legend RightAfter – legend position “right”


After Example Chart, Legend Right, Values in RectanglesAfter – legend position “inside”


After Example Chart, Legend Inside, Values in Rectangles
We’re introducing axis titles, a new feature that allows users to label their X and Y axes with a title to provide additional context for their data and, in many cases, remove the need for a legend. 
In addition, X and Y grid line treatments are now toned down to reduce noise in the chart.

Before


Before Example ChartAfter


After Example ChartWe’re introducing a new feature called lines of interest, where users can interact and explore multiple data series of interest by hovering and selecting line labels to focus and defocus them on the chart.
After Example Chart 2
We’ve made improvements to date axis labels that allow more granular grouping of dates. We’ve also added smart label collision detection, which prevents charts with many labels from becoming cut off. These labels scale according to the data domain and the size of the chart.

Before


Before Example ChartAfter


After Example Chart

Bar chart updates


These changes apply to simple charts that are in either the horizontal or vertical bar chart orientation.
Bars are now a consistent maximum width across all chart sizes independent of the chart width or the number of variables in the breakout.  This ensures visual consistency across the dashboard canvas for both small and large bar charts, as well as an updated, more modern visual design.

Before


Before Example Bar Charts, Thick BarsAfter


After Example Bar Charts, Thin BarsAxis labels now have smart collision detection and rendering for data dense charts, meaning labels will adjust so they don’t become unreadable; all labels can be accessed by hovering over the chart.

Before


Before Example ChartAfter


After Example Bar ChartStacked bar charts that display data labels now render labels outside the bar in order to have an accessible color contrast ratio. This applies to both vertical and horizontal layouts.

BEFORE


Before Example Stacked Chart, Thick BarsAFTER


After Example Stacked Chart, thin bars


12 replies

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GuinevereM These are all excellent visual updates which will improve the readability of charts within Dashboards. That said, for a senior leadership audience, individuals typically do not use the Qualtrics application itself but rather view data charts exported into a more familiar environment, such as PowerPoint. Currently, the app does not allow users to increase font size which would make the charts more readable.
Because font size is so small in exported images, they are unreadable for a leadership audience either onscreen or printed on paper, requiring the analyst to reproduce the charts in another application (such as Excel) which provides larger font size. Is this functionality being considered? Thanks in advance!

Userlevel 7
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I really like all these improvements :)
What would also be a great addition, is that gaps in a simple line chart could be connected. It happens sometimes that there are no data for a certain point on the x-axis, and then the line disconnects and shows gaps...
More info here: https://www.qualtrics.com/community/discussion/12824/connect-gaps-in-simple-line-chart#latest

Userlevel 5
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Hi AdamK12 and JoycaV - thank you so much for the honest and incredibly valuable feedback! I've passed it on to our product team, and they'll consider it as they roll out future improvements. We really appreciate it, and please let us know if you have anything else to add!

Userlevel 3
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Thanks for some really great improvements and showing intent to continue this direction! I've always been a fan and follower of Edward Tufte's vision of information design and appreciate Qualtrics incorporating some of those principles. Our organization is looking to leverage dashboards and PowerPoint reporting and would love to see continued work here! Thanks!

Userlevel 3
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Glad to see these changes! Couple of suggestions, though.

1: Include these in paginated reporting, not just dashboards.
2: For line charts, having the ability to add trendlines (like in Excel) would really add value!

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While I like some of these changes, others I fear are going to make more problems than what they 'solved'. For example, at the bottom of the examples are stacked vertical bar charts. If the percentages are now required to be outside the bar, that takes up more room AND those charts can no longer be exported and dropped into a PowerPoint deck along with other charts because the format is different.
Thicker bars versus thin also seems like it should be a "responsive" option within the widget and not forced as the only option.

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Great improvements 🙂 Looking forward to see them on my side and wonder how they will impact small size widgets

Userlevel 5
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https://www.qualtrics.com/community/discussion/comment/35969#Comment_35969Hi GuinevereM, DawneW has a good point, what happens if you have lots of bars close together, how will you tell which numbers correspond to which bar if they are outside of the bar?  I think it's important to give the end user choice so am hoping that you are not restricting the old option of having the numbers inside the bars?

Referencing another point made about aligning to a specific person's vision of information design, I understand that it can be helpful and give us a great starting point and best practise.  But if you look at Excel, why is Excel the most popular tabular spreadsheet application... I'd say it's because they allow the end user to control and manage the data the way they want as they will understand the audience they are presenting to.  I hope that as developments and changes are introduced that we don't do away with the old options as sometimes, depending on the audience and how many charts or data points you are trying to display, they may have worked better.

Thanks

Rod Pestell

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Appreciated this post and examples very much by the way! Our team has been discussing and preparing for these changes over the past few days and having these concrete examples helped our prep.
Now that the update has dropped, is there a place where Qualtrics is collecting feedback on these new features? There are things I and my team really like (such as the ability to add axes labels, so wonderful), and things that we are finding hard to work with (such as just how incredibly skinny all the bars are, and how tiny some of the text in these charts is).

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GuinevereM
Definitely curious about this myself as I've already seen some major grevious errors.

  • Vertical bar charts with 11 time periods on the X axis but only 10 vertical bars showing

  • Charts which actually had the time period modified in the data as the chart is now showing data with different month's in the X axis than when they were collected (this one scares me greatly!)

  • Charts randomly determining whether the first vertical bar or the second vertical bar will be the start of the 'every other' x axis showing.

and a lot of formatting issues because of the very weirdly redesigned stacked bar chart. Without even getting into why the %'s are now on the left of the bar instead of where they used to be with vertical breakout bars on the right (something that will confuse my end users who are used to looking to the right) ... the far left %'s are sometimes cut off in the chart now as it hits the left border of the widget. Editted my note to include pictures.
Image1.jpgImage2.jpgImage3.jpgImage4.jpgImage6.jpgImage8.jpg

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GuinevereM I agree with DawneW in regards to the changes to the bar charts. Overnight, across the 20+ bar charts I have within a certain dashboard, we lost the ability:

  • For the full x axis labels to show (cuts off after a few characters)

  • For the all x axis labels to show (unless you only have a few columns)

  • For any data values to show (unless you only have a few columns)

This has rendered the dashboard basically useless for the updates I send out, and the only way I could display the data to my stakeholders last week was to download the data from the chart to excel so that the data and axis labels show up once again. I'm think my best path forward is to totally abandon the qualtrics dashboard at this point and start from scratch with an offline tool like PowerBI or Tableau, only because of this update. You can see via this screenshots how much harder it is to read the same chart before and after the update -
4.5.21 #1.PNG4.5.21 #2.PNG

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Hi GuinevereM,
I'd like to mention that I don't think the automated axis labels function is working very well. Normally with a chart you'd want to label the first point so that you know the starting range. In the below example, you are left guessing what it is. I agree in terms of each beginning of the year to display the first month / week with the year but also you should label the first point or at least have the option such as an override option other than the only other current option of unticking the enable automatic axis labels and then all of the labels are displayed. May I also reference excel charts again as per my previous post. You need to give us the flexibility that excel provides - that should be your benchmark!
Thanks and hope we can see some changes in the near future
Rod Pestell

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