Let’s be honest, your users will have a hard time absorbing big data if you just present it as a molded paragraph with a dull comma-separated list of figures. You will have to show some creativity to achieve that utter understanding with them. 

Graphs, charts, infographics, and other visual elements are not only beautiful but also crucial if you care about your customers and want to drive value. There are a number of WordPress plugins that can help make all of this happen. 

Let’s not beat around the bush and talk about it more substantially in the article. Keep reading!

What Data Visualization Is and Why You Need It

Last year, our company reached 334,558 clients, 112,235 of them made a purchase of our services, which is about 33.5% of all the clients we were able to reach. Among them, 98.2% are women and only 1.8% are men. In short, we have managed to make 110,214 women around the world happier! 

That’s a pretty awkward text to read on a website, isn’t it? You probably didn’t even read the paragraph, you just skimmed over it. Just imagine how much easier it would be to grasp all of the above if it were presented in the form of colorful illustrations, graphs, or charts! What if they were dynamic as well? 

The same goes for surveys. Without elements of interactivity and pretty visualization, your user will feel like taking a quantum physics exam: weird, boring, and off-putting. 

You’ll also be able to assess the results of the surveys faster and easier if they’re presented, say, in a graph. That way, you can make improvements and decisions to grow your business lightning-fast. As a result, you’ll get better personalization and more money.

Similarly, for example, imagine that you turn to data analytics companies and get the results in the form of a convenient and straightforward graph instead of a dull file with lots of numbers.

Why not Present the Data as an Image? 

Okay, it’s possible but only if you don’t skimp on time and effort. After all, imagine you need to update the data: you will have to reapply to the designer for the correction of figures and then, re-load the image. It is “heavy” (takes more space on your hosting) and slows down the loading of pages. 

In the case of tables and charts, things are much easier. You can quickly adjust the data in a table. Moreover, you can make them interactive.

And when the question ” Why do we need that at all?” no longer looms in front of us, we can proceed to the list of plugins that help solve the problem of data visualization. 

Best WordPress Plugins 

Below, you will find a short and concise list of our favorites. Later in the article, we’ll tell you all about them in detail.

1. Visualizer: Tables and Charts

The name of this plugin speaks for itself: it is designed to visualize your data in the form of tables and charts. To do this, you are offered a small number of chart templates (15) that you can customize for your website. For example, you can adjust the colors or style to make it flow better with the rest of the visual elements. 

If you pay for the PRO version of the plugin, you’ll have more templates at your disposal, and you’ll get a nice bonus – email support. By the way, we have checked its performance and were pleased with the quality. The representatives of the service won’t leave you face-to-face with the problem. At the same time, within a month, you can request a refund if something goes awry or the plugin does not meet your expectations. 

You can import data quickly and easily from Excel, CSV, or Google Sheets. 

In addition to different kinds of charts (bar, pie, bubble, etc) and graphs, you can create tables with this plugin, divide them into pages, and modify them any way you wish. 

On a side note, the plugin can analyze your WordPress activity and help you create what best realizes your query. 

The results are displayed with shortcodes.

Also, we would like to stress that all charts and tables look great on both the PC and the mobile interface. So you don’t have to worry about their user-friendliness.

So, here are the Visualizer features we would like to highlight: 

• It assists you in creating graphs, charts, and tables;
• It analyzes your previous actions on WordPress; 
• This is a user-friendly solution that looks great on any device with any operating system;
• Solid customer experience;
• Free version available; 
• You can ask for a refund within a month of purchasing the plugin.

Still, the Visualizer plugin has one major drawback: the graphics load very slowly. We have tested it on several themes, and the display time ranged from 3 to 11 seconds. That is why many people abandon it. Probably, this drawback will be fixed in future versions.

2. Eagle

Eagle(https://eagle.cool) is a powerful productivity tool that helps improve creatives’ four main workflows: “collect, organize, search, and browse”. 

When it comes to data visualization in WordPress, Eagle can be a valuable tool for creatives. For example,

• the Eagle extension allows you to easily collect images and webpage screenshots from a variety of online sources, providing inspiration for your own data visualization projects
• the tagging feature allows you to easily organize and categorize your collections for future reference and inspiration.

These features make Eagle a top choice for those looking to improve their data visualization in WordPress by collecting a wide range of examples and sources of inspiration.

3. WP Forms: Survey Creation 

Want to conduct surveys on your site and easily and swiftly evaluate the results in a convenient way? WPForms is a great plugin for such tasks. 

Download the plugin from the WPForms website and install it on your resource. Luckily, once you register, it’s pretty effortless to do and doesn’t take much of your time. Next, install an extension called Survey and Polls and activate it through your WordPress control panel. Voila! You’re ready to use one of the best plugins for creating surveys. 

The biggest advantage of this plugin is the different types of visualizations of the survey results. You can easily switch between them and display the figures in either a bar chart or a pie chart. Also, you can convert any of your forms into a survey so you don’t waste time. 

Want to save the results and show them to your colleagues in the marketing department? With one click, the plugin allows you to download them in JPG and PDF format. 

So, here are some of the key WPForms features we’d like to highlight: 

• A plugin for creating surveys and visualizing their results;
• Easy activation;
• Switching between visualization options.  

4. WP: Table Builder

Want to create tables with literally a few clicks of the mouse and no coding? There is a solution! WP Table Builder is a great plugin if you want to implement attractive, user-friendly, and intuitive tables on your resource. 

You can import tables from CSV or XML files, and easily export whatever you create. By the way, you’ll also have dozens of templates available that you can easily customize to your exact needs. 

If you combine this plugin with an editor like Gutenberg, you can customize tables just like you do it with everyone’s favorite Drag and Drop plugin. 

WP Table Builder features:

• Quick creation of tables without coding;
• Easy import and export;
• Integration with Gutenberg. 

5. SnowBall: Article Enhancement

This WordPress plugin with the lovely name SnowBall will make your articles eye-catching and engaging. It’s a simple in use tool that you can apply to create unique articles. 

The plugin includes simple blocks that you can add to your side comments, tables, image comparisons, videos, histograms, tables of contents, and much more.

So, here are the SnowBall features: 

• User-friendly interface;
• Supports a variety of content, including text, video, images, data visualization, and interactive widgets;
• You can edit the code according to your needs. 

6. RJ Quickcharts: Chart Creation

You can create a chart in just a couple of minutes! Don’t believe it? Then you definitely haven’t heard of RJ Quickcharts. It’s a simple and handy plugin for creating charts and graphs.

Despite the fact that it hasn’t been updated in a while, it works fine on the latest version of WordPress.

There are only three templates in the plugin’s toolbox:

• Line charts;
• Column charts;
• Pie charts.

Data can be copied and pasted into a table, and you can also set names for the footer and sidebar. In addition, you can create a chart or graph with more than one type of value. The only problem is that they overlap if you have a large number of parameters.

Assuming you have Excel spreadsheets ready, the process of creating a chart will only take a couple of minutes!

7. Easy Charts: Chart Creation 

Easy Charts is a really nifty plugin for displaying charts.

You have 12 templates available as well as a lot of customizable features such as:

• Font size, type, density, and color;
• Template color scheme;
• The size of the output content.

However, Easy Charts does not always display data correctly. For example, if you set the height or width too small, the numbers will overlap each other. Also, you cannot display fractional numbers: instead of 78.74, you will see 79.

Basically, the template is suitable for making charts with a small number of values. At this point, the plugin is not perfect, there is something to work on.

8. M Chart: Graph and Chart Creation 

M Chart doesn’t make the charts and graphs particularly striking, but it’s very easy to use. 

Besides, it does a great job with big data. You can copy values from Excel and directly paste them into the appropriate field. Importing and exporting is also an option.

There are four templates to choose from:

• Line Chart;
• Vertical columns;
• Horizontal columns;
• Pie diagram.

When entering values, keep in mind that M Chart does not recognize commas.

If you enter “11.52” in a cell, “1152” will be displayed. To set a fractional value, you have to use a period: “11.52”.

The plugin is fully adaptive: the graphs look good on any screen and are compatible with any operating system.

But unfortunately, there is no way to change the color scheme or the font size directly from the plugin settings. However, this can be solved by editing styles. 

Conclusion

Graphical representation of data is a major part of doing business.

 Some websites even implement a repository of data for historical, situational, and predictive information about business processes based on collected and analyzed data.

 With the above-mentioned tools, you have many options for using WordPress data visualization as an integral part of website design.

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