Should This Be a Chart? Your Guide to Choosing the Right Format

Charts can make assessment results easier to understand at a glance, but they are not always the best choice. This article looks at when to use a chart, when a table or short explanation will work better, and how to choose the right format for different kinds of assessment data, from scores and trends to comparisons, cohorts, and recommendations.

Charts work best when they provide a result that is easy to understand quickly. They are good at showing comparisons, trends, gaps, patterns, and changes over time. But not every assessment result needs to be charted. Sometimes a score label, a table, or a short explanation will make the point more clearly.

That choice becomes more important in professional assessment reports because the same result may be interpreted differently. A respondent may want to understand their own score. A manager may be looking for group or comparative patterns. A consultant may be looking for outliers. Effectively, the format should match what the reader is trying to do with the information.

Start with what the reader needs to notice

Before choosing a chart type, ask what the reader is meant to take away.

If the point is comparison, a chart is usually helpful. For example, if a leadership assessment scores someone across communication, decision-making, delegation, resilience, and strategic thinking, a bar chart can make the stronger and weaker areas easy to spot.

If the point is to show change over time, again, a chart is great. A reassessment program might show how a team’s capability scores have changed across three or four iterations. A line chart or multi-bar chart can make progress, decline, or uneven movement much easier to see than a row of numbers.

If the reader needs exact values, a table may be better. A manager reviewing scores across departments may need the detail, not just the pattern. A respondent comparing section scores, ratings, dates, and recommendations may need something they can check and refer back to.

If the result is already clear on its own, an overall score with a rating color applied often works best, especially if the next few lines explain what the rating means and what the respondent should do next. 

When to use which chart

Bar charts are usually the safest choice for comparing categories. They work well for assessment sections, competencies, departments, rating groups, or cohorts. If you want someone to compare five scores quickly, a bar chart will usually do the job better than a more decorative chart.

Line charts are useful when there are several points in time. They suit longitudinal assessments, reassessments, progress tracking, and before-during-after programs. If there are only two time points, a simple before-and-after comparison may be easier than a line chart.

Stacked bars can work when you want to show how a group is divided across categories, such as how many respondents fall into each rating band. They are helpful when the reader needs the broad makeup of a group, although they become harder to read when there are too many segments.

Pie charts need more restraint. They can work when there are only a few categories and the parts add up to a meaningful whole, but they are poor for close comparisons. If someone has to work out whether one slice is slightly larger than another, a bar chart would probably have been kinder.

Scatter plots are useful when you want to look at the relationship between two measures. For example, a capability assessment might compare confidence against actual performance, or readiness against risk. Scatter plots are not always needed in respondent-facing reports, but they can be useful in dashboards and assessor analysis.

And Tables, while not formally charts, also belong in this conversation. They are often the right choice for detailed results, exact figures, evidence reviews, score breakdowns, and anything the reader may need to look up later. With rating colors added, they can also provide a Heatmap highlighting scores and trends.

When not to use a chart at all

A chart can make a report harder to read when it is doing a job that a text score or a table would do better.

Single-result visuals are a common example. An overall score or pass/fail outcome often works better as a donut/gauge result or a score with a short explanation. 

Charts also struggle when there are too many axis categories. A chart with 18 bars, long labels, small text, and a crowded legend asks too much of the reader. If the detail needs to be checked carefully, a table may be better. If the purpose is comparison, rating colors can work wonders.

Another common problem is using a chart when the real value is in the interpretation. If an assessment report gives a respondent three recommendations, those recommendations should be written as feedback. A chart can support the message, but it should not replace the explanation.

The most important thing: keep the report useful, if it feels more complicated than it should be - it probably is.

Brilliant Assessments gives you several ways to present results, including charts, tables, ratings, benchmarks, dashboards, PDF reports, Word reports, Results Pages, cohort reports, 360 reports, and iteration-based reports.

The best reports use the format that makes the result easiest to understand. Sometimes that will be a chart. Sometimes it will be a table. Sometimes it will be one clear sentence.

Before adding a chart, ask what the reader should notice, whether a visual makes that easier, and whether the same point would be clearer as text or a table. If the chart makes the answer quicker to understand, use it. If it makes the reader work harder, leave it out.