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Bar Chart (Results)


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About Bar Charts

The Bar Chart visualization allows you to view answer options or field value data as rectangular bars. The length of each bar is proportional to the number of respondents who selected or were assigned the value. One axis of the visualization shows the specific answer options being compared, and the other axis represents a discrete value (e.g., counts or percentages of respondents with that option).

A rainbow bar chart visualization of company satisfaction levels split by gender of the respondent

Customization Options

For general settings, see the Visualizations Overview support page. Read on for settings specific to the Bar Chart.

Display Options

You have six settings under the Display Options list in the visualization editing pane. Some of these options will be enabled by default, but you can enable any combination of these to achieve your desired visualization:

A bar chart visualization with the options in the visualization editing pane

  • Sort Bar Values: Sort the options in ascending or descending order. This option disappears once you apply a breakout.
    Display Options in the visualization editing pane, the first being Sort Bar Values
  • Show X Axis: Display the X axis and its values in the visualization. Note that when Horizontal Bars is enabled, the X axis is in the Y position. For a vertical Bar Chart, you can also change the orientation of the text to Horizontal, Vertical, or Diagonal.
  • Show Y Axis: Display the Y axis and its values in the visualization. Note that when Horizontal Bars is enabled, the Y axis is in the X position.
  • Truncate Labels: Shorten the labels of each bar once they reach a certain length.
    Truncate Values slider bar
  • Show Bar Labels: Display the number of respondents who answered or were assigned to each option at the end of each bar.
    Bar chart with numbers over each bar
  • Normalize to Percentages: Display the percentage of respondents who answered or were assigned each option instead of the count. Only available when a breakout is applied.
    Percentages along the y-axis
  • Show Legend: Display the legend values with the auto setting, at the bottom, to the left, or inset within the graph.
  • Stacked Bars: Display the options stacked on top of each other instead of as separate bars. Note that when Horizontal Bars is enabled, options will be stacked side by side. Only available when a breakout is applied.
    Singular bar with each option stacked on top of the other as a strip of color
  • Horizontal Bars: Rotate the visualization so that the bars appear lengthwise along the graph instead of vertical.
    Bar chart arranged horizontally

Axis Values

Whenever you apply a breakout to a Bar Chart, the visualization is broken into several sets of bars, one for each of the Breakout options (or “axis values”). You can edit the text of these axis values by clicking directly into the textbox for the name and entering the new name.

Axis values in the visualization editing pane

Legend Values

You have a variety of options concerning the answer names (or “legend values”), including the following:

  • Change the legend value text by clicking directly into the textbox for the name and entering the new name. To turn the legend on/off, use the Display Options.
    Legend Values in the visualization editing pane
  • Adjust the color of the option by clicking directly on the color box to the left of the value and selecting a new color.
    Changing the color of a Legend Value
  • Change the order the values appear in the visualization by clicking to the left of a value and dragging it to its desired position.
    A Legend value is grabbed by the color block to the left of its name field and dragged

    This Bar Chart has more Legend Values because it has been broken down by gender. To set this up, use the breakout by option found in visualization editing pane.
  • Hide values from the visualization by deselecting the checkbox to the left of the value.
    A legend value is deselected, making the bar of the same color disappear from the chart

Transpose

Whenever you apply a breakout to a Bar Chart, the visualization is broken into several sets of bars, one for each axis value. By default, the axis values are set by the Breakout options, but you can click the Transpose button to switch the axis values (Breakout options) with the legend values (Data Source options).

Transpose button above the Remove button in the visualization editing pane

Bar chart from the previous image with the component flipped

Incompatible Fields

Bar Charts are compatible with almost every kind of variable in Qualtrics because they can display both discrete data (e.g., a finite, five point scale) and continuous data (e.g., a question where respondents type in their age). This includes most question types, survey metadata, Embedded Data, and custom variables, such as Formulas or Bucketed variables.

Below are the few variables Bar Charts are not compatible with:

In general, Bar Charts are incompatible with open text content that is not numeric.

Qtip: Be careful with numeric data collected from open-ended questions and with finite scales that have hundreds of choices. A Bar Chart cannot comfortably display hundreds of choices, so for variables like these, it might be better to set your metric as mean or use filters so fewer results are included.