Visualizing compositions in your data

Sometimes, you want to analyze the various elements that compose a feature – for example, the percentage of sales per region or percentage of queries per channel. In both examples, they are not considering any time dimension; instead, they are just looking at the entire data points. For these types of compositions, where you don’t have the time dimension, you could show your data using pie charts, stacked 100% bar charts, and tree maps.

Figure 5.11 is a pie chart showing the number of queries per customer channel for a given company over a pre-defined period of time.

Figure 5.11 – Plotting compositions with a pie chart

If you want to show compositions while considering a time dimension, then your most common options are a stacked area chart, a stacked 100% area chart, a stacked column chart, or a stacked 100% column chart. For reference, take a look at Figure 5.12, which shows the sales per...