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Data Visualisation Guide

Table design: integrating visualisations

2 minutes read

Table design

A table containing numbers is closely related to a heatmap, in which each cell in the table is coloured according to the values it contains.

A heatmap of monthly unemployment rates in 11 countries

Source: Datawrapper

This heatmap technique of colouring cells depending on their numerical value, can also be applied to individual columns in a table. This can help find the lower and higher values in columns with (unsorted) numbers or help in signalling the proportions between the numbers.

A list of the most visited museums in the world, with the column with the number of visitors coloured according the the values

Another interesting technique for fusing visualisations and tables is to integrate bars into a column in which the bar length of the bar in a cell is proportional to the number it contains.

And when time series data is available, a table column can integrate mini linecharts (called “sparklines”) indicating the trend in the data.

Related pages

Fonts for numbers

Chart anatomy

Visual hierarchy: sizing

Arrangement and reading direction

Visual hierarchy: colour

Table design: interactive tables

Table design