Gauge Chart
  • 13 Oct 2023
  • 2 Minutes to read
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Gauge Chart

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Article summary

This chart type re-uses gauges from the scientific and industrial setting to showcase partial progress towards a specific number. They're also often referred to as speedometer charts (in references to dashboards in cars) or dial charts. Here are some examples:

Gauge charts are simple, easy-to-understand charts that visualize one value at a time. They shine in KPI (or strategic) dashboards over a standard big number chart, where you want to succinctly communicate the progress towards a goal or KPI of interest (instead of just the metric itself).

Reference Content

The following articles may be useful resources as you build your chart:

Creating a Gauge Chart

Simple Gauge Chart

To create a gauge chart, the only required field is the Metric you want to visualize. To make a gauge chart useful though, you'll also want to customize the goal that maps to 100% of the gauge.

Data -> Metric
  • Choose the single, specific Metric you want visualized, similar to what you would select in a Big Number chart.

Customize -> Chart Options -> Min and Max
  • Min: for many KPI's or target metrics, setting the Min value to 0 makes sense. 
  • Max: usually you'll want to set your KPI or metric target as the Max value

Here's the resulting chart:

Gauge Chart with Dimensions

In the following example, we're able split up the type of ride.

Dimensions

  • As with most charts in Preset, you can optionally add Dimensions to split up and color specific dimensions. The unique values in the chosen columns are used to split up the chart.

Here's what the resulting chart looks like:

Customizing your Gauge Chart

The Customize panel for a graph chart exposes a large variety of options to further clarify your chart. Here's a breakdown of some of these fields:

  • General
    • Min and Max: let you specify the starting and ending values of the gauge chart.
    • Start Angle and End Angle: how you want the gauge to be angled
    • Show Pointer: if this checkbox is ticked, the dials from the center are shown (on by default).
    • Animation: if this checkbox is ticked, animation is used when updating the values or rendering the chart.
  • Axis
    • Show Axis Line Ticks: if this checkbox is ticked, the minor split lines are shown along the gauge.
    • Show Split Lines: if this checkbox is ticked, the major split lines are shown along the gauge.
    • Split Number: slider for choosing the number of splits used for the split lines. Higher means more frequent and smaller distances between splits.
  • Progress
    • Show Progress: if this checkbox is ticked, the partial progress bars are shown (on by default). We generally recommend keeping this enabled!
    • Round Cap: if this checkbox is ticked, the ends of bars are rounded off (instead of rectangular). Makes for better aesthetics!
    • Overlap: if this checkbox is ticked, dimension level progress bars stack together along a single bar. We generally recommend not ticking this if you have more than few dimensions!




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