I won’t bury the lede: I totally revamped my Qualitative Chart Chooser.
➡️ Add your details here and I’ll whip this right over to you.
Are there even enough ways to visualize qualitative data that we need a whole chart chooser???
Yep. The Qualitative Chart Chooser has 22 different options for you! This is the largest collection of qual viz choices anywhere.
Here’s a sampling:
Much of your choice in how to graph your qualitative data depends on exactly what you collected and how you chose to analyze it.
Answer these questions:
Individual, Aggregate, or Themes?
Are you planning to report at the individual level, aggregate responses from many individuals, or are you reporting out on themes?
You usually stick to the individual level if you have under 50 respondents. Or if you’re just plucking some choice quotes from open-ended survey questions.
If you have more than 50 respondents, it’s an opportunity to aggregate the individual data. You get more visual options here – and no, that doesn’t mean we just quantify the data and make a bar chart.
Traditional qualitative reporting involves analyzing the data for themes, which unlocks a new set of graphs to pick from.
Yes, these can overlap. And yes you can combine them!
Pure Qual, Light Quant, or Concept?
Our traditionalists object if anyone tries to count qualitative data. I get it. I’m that way sometimes too. Why collect qualitative data if we’re gonna strip out the richness and just quantify it? If you’re in that camp, the Qualitative Chart Chooser has specific ideas for you.
If you’re ok with some light quantification (again, not like a bar chart or something), you’ll see additional options.
And sometimes it’s neither quant nor qual. Sometimes we’re trying to communicate something more conceptual. That’ll involve other visual choices.
Yes/No or a Range?
How did you collect the data? Were you asking yes/no questions? Are you only interested in reporting present or absent? If you only have binary responses to work with, there are some cool qualitative chart types you should check out.
If your participants were able to speak to a range of responses, present/absent graph types won’t work. You’ll have an expanded set of ideas.
Time?
If you double up on any visual, you could in theory have a story that talks about change over time. One visual for before, one for now. But we can do better than that. If you’re communicating about changes over time, there are specialty qualitative visuals to check out.
Need more help with your qualitative data viz? See all your choices in the Qualitative Chart Chooser.
➡️ Add your details here and I’ll drop this in your inbox.
I’m gonna show you visuals you haven’t seen before that open up entirely new possibilities for your qualitative data. You’ll want to know exactly HOW to make these cool visuals.
Do you need to buy a specialty software program? Nope. You can make any of the 22 options in Excel. Or Tableau. Or R. We show you exactly how. Like, literally step-by-step, in the Evergreen Data Visualization Academy.
The Academy only opens twice a year. Get on the VIP list for early access and a heads up about possible discounts.
