Visualizing Likert Scale Data. What Is The Best Way To Effectively - by Alana Pirrone - Nightingale - Medium

10/18/23, 8:03 PM Visualizing Likert Scale Data.
What is the best way to effectively… | by Alana Pirrone | Nightingale | Medium
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Visualizing Likert Scale Data

Same data, displayed seven different ways
Alana Pirrone · Follow

Published in Nightingale
9 min read · Jun 4, 2020
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Displaying Likert scale data
Working with research and evaluations teams, I’m often faced with the question of
how to effectively display Likert scale data. If you are not familiar with the term, a
https://medium.com/nightingale/seven-different-ways-to-display-likert-scale-data-d0c1c9a9ad59 1/18
10/18/23, 8:03 PM Visualizing Likert Scale Data. What is the best way to effectively… | by Alana Pirrone | Nightingale | Medium
Likert scale, named after American psychologist Rensis Likert, measures a

response to a closed-ended question on a rating scale of how much you agree or
disagree, often with a neutral option in-between. A typical five-point scale may
include answers: strongly disagree, disagree, neutral, agree, strongly agree.
I regularly use a five-point Likert scale format to evaluate my Design and Data
Visualisation short course in order to gain specific feedback on how participants
rated the quality and usefulness of each session. The challenge for people like me
is, having collected the detailed data, how can it be displayed most effectively, in a
way that is easy for readers to understand and interpret?
This month, I decided to give myself a challenge: take the same data, from a five-
point Likert scale, and display it in several different ways. I came up with seven
different options, some much better than others. Let me walk you through.
To begin with, this is the example data I have used:
Responses displayed in a table
This is a sample piece of data from a typical question I would use for a course
evaluation. For the purpose of this article, I’ve used a manageable amount of data
that showed a good variety of responses. As you can see, when presenting data in
table format it’s hard to pull out much meaning about the course’s strengths and
weaknesses.
Creating the charts

I made some specific design choices to maintain consistency throughout, including
using blue to show positive ratings, grey for neutral, and orange for negative. In
some charts I have used the actual values recorded for each response category, and
in others I’ve used the relative frequency (i.e. the number of responses in each
category as a percentage of all responses). I have produced these charts in Adobe
Illustrator and InDesign, but they could be reproduced with most (if not all) data
visualisation software, including Excel.
Display 1: Small-multiple pie charts

The world is divided on pie charts. Many data visualisation specialists will tell you
how evil they are, and I tend to agree with them. They are hard to read and
interpret as they rely on the reader’s ability to decode quantitative information by
judging and comparing angles and area, which is actually quite difficult to do.
However, in saying that, people still love seeing the part-to-whole relationship that
a pie chart offers. Whatever your feelings are toward pie charts, I wanted to include
them for argument’s sake.
Small-multiple pie charts
I have used one pie chart for each session. Each pie shows the relative frequency of
each response category and is colour coded to the key above. I’ve directly labelled
the wedges with their percentage but left off the smaller slices (personal design
choice). The colour scale is simple and has enough contrast between the blue and
orange to notice a difference, and the reader can refer back to the key to check.
The small-multiple pie charts illustrate that Session 2 needs a lot of work. There is a
large chunk of orange there. Session 3 is doing quite well, no orange in sight. Note
that it’s easier to compare the feedback responses within each session than
between the sessions.
Display 2: Grouped bar chart

If you’re like me and use Google Forms to collect evaluation responses, you’ll notice
it produces a grouped bar chart similar to this. However, it normally colours each
line with a different hue.
Studies have shown that it is far easier for readers to compare length and position
(e.g. on a bar or line chart) than area and angle (e.g. pie or donut chart). Stephen
Few describes this in detail in ‘Save the Pies for Dessert.’
Grouped bar chart
On first glance there is a lot to take in here. The bars are grouped by session, and
overall we can see that, again, there is more blue than orange, which in terms of
positive feedback is a good thing. Generally, the blue bars are quite tall, except for
in Session 2, where the responses are more evenly spread. My eyes are also drawn
to the big gap between Sessions 2 and 3, and it might take a while to see that this is
because there are no “Poor” or “Fair” responses for Session 3. Yes, we can now
compare between all the sessions, but this display may seem too overwhelming and
require significantly more visual processing time, so the reader is at risk of
skipping over it entirely.
Display 3: Small-multiple bar charts

This display shows six individual horizontal bar charts with the Likert scale
responses ordered from “Excellent” at the top, to “Poor” at the bottom. Again, the
colour choice of blue and orange gives a quick overall view of the data and
responses. In each chart, I have labelled the values directly and kept them all to
scale. It is now a lot clearer to see that there are no responses for “Fair” or “Poor”
for Session 3.
Small-multiple bar charts
This is one of my favourite ways to display the data. We can easily see within each
session how the responses vary, and if we want to compare between sessions, our
eyes only need to scroll across the screen. In terms of visual hierarchy, the reader
can choose which session to consider, then go down and read off the response
values for each category. For example, in Session 1, readers can follow along the
“Excellent” bar to see its value (8), then compare it to the other bars. As mentioned
previously, we are much better at reading length and position and the general
public already knows how to understand and interpret a bar chart.
But what if you want to display the data in a more modern, non-traditional way?, I
hear you say…
Display 4: Small-multiple waffle charts

Waffle charts are usually designed as a grid of 100 squares (10x10) to show the
relative frequency of the given data. They are another great way to show the part-
to-whole relationship that people love about pie charts. You could say they are a bit
of a modern twist on the traditional charts you see in programs like Excel.
Small-multiple waffle charts
The thing I like most about this display is the gradual fade of coloured squares from
blue to orange. We get a good overall picture of the data and responses, but at the
same time, I think it’s vital we have the categories and values directly next to each
section. Without those, it may be hard to pull much meaning from the chart. As
with the pie charts, the reader must interpret the data by judging area, which is
hard to do.
One downside to this display is that it is almost impossible to see where there were
no responses for some categories on the Likert scale: look at Session 3, for
example. There were no “Fair” or “Poor” responses to this question in the
evaluation data, so the areas for “Excellent”, “V. good” and “Neutral” appear larger.
However, the lack of orange in the waffle chart for Session 3 could easily be used as
a clear example of a session where the majority of feedback was neutral or positive.
Display 5: Large number and text

Again, thinking a little outside the box gives the large number and text option. It’s a
great way to break up a lengthy, wordy report filled with too many dot points
(bullets).
Large number and text option
For each session, I made a judgement call on what I wanted my audience to focus
on. I combined the “V. good” and “Excellent” categories together in sessions 1, 3, 4,
5 and Activities, as I see all of these as positive responses. Obviously, the thing to
take away from Session 2 is that there was a striking number of negative (“Fair” or
“Poor”) responses. As course leader, that’s where I can focus on making
improvements. In this display I have been consistent with the other charts and kept
the positive responses blue and negative responses orange. It should be noted,
however, that this type of presentation is subjective, as I had to make a call on
which data to include.
Going back to the Likert scale you can see that I needed to simplify from five
categories (“Poor” through to “Excellent”) to two (“Negative”/“Positive”). Some of
the complexities of the data have been lost, but I made reference to the original
categories in the explanatory text. I haven’t included the neutral category at all
(again a subjective choice), but depending how you see a neutral result, it could fall
under positive, negative or neither.
Display 6: Stacked bar chart

Now we’re getting to the pointy end of my challenge. The next two charts are
probably the most effective ways to display Likert scale data. A stacked bar chart
belongs to the part-to-whole group of charts and shows the whole range of
evaluation responses, in proportion to one another.
Stacked bar chart
The issue with this particular data is that it isn’t possible to have a common baseline
on both the left- and right-hand side. A common baseline makes it easier to
compare the length of each bar (as they all start at the same point). In this chart, we
only have a common baseline on the right-hand side, but not on the left. Due to the
lack of evaluation responses coded dark/light orange in the chart, the left-hand side
baseline starts with three different categories.
Like the other charts, an overall glance makes it easy to see which sessions went
well, and which sessions could benefit from improvement. For ease of reading, I
have labelled each percentage value directly.
There is one way we could improve this chart to make it easier to read and that
brings us to Display 7.
Display 7: Diverging stacked bar chart

The last option and the one I would highly recommend for this type of data is the
diverging stacked bar chart. It’s essentially the same as a stacked bar chart but I
have categorised the data into positive and negative categories by separating them
with a thick visual baseline. In this chart I chose to categorise “neutral” as a
negative result. There is no universal rule how a neutral category should be
displayed, or which side of the bar it should lie. I have made a subjective call here to
measure success or failure from that baseline, which acts as a kind of target I can
use in my work.
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Diverging stacked bar chart
It’s clear, effective and is able to show a large chunk of data neatly and succinctly.
Compare this to the grouped bar chart above (Display 2) or the small-multiple pie
charts in Display 1. Which one are you able to quickly pull meaning from?
Conclusion
In summary, I have presented you with seven different options for displaying your
Likert scale data. There is no right or wrong answer, rather options for you to
consider and get inspiration from. There are also many other things you need to
consider before you start designing such as:
• What medium are you designing for? Is it a report, PowerPoint slide, website, or
one-page handout? How much space do you have for your charts?
• Who is your audience? Will a diverging stacked bar chart confuse them?
• What colours will you use to distinguish between positive and negative categories?
Are your organisation’s branding colours too similar?
• What message do you want to get across to your audience?
There’s a lot to consider, but I hope the options above will help your thinking.
Happy designing!
Alana Pirrone is a Design and Data Visualisation Consultant, and Design and
Communications Coordinator at The University of Melbourne, Australia. Find out more
about Alana at alanapirrone.com.au
Data Visualization Data Science Likert Scale Design Qualitative Research
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Written by Alana Pirrone

169 Followers · Writer for Nightingale
Design and Data Visualisation Consultant and Design and Communications Coordinator at University of
Melbourne, Australia.
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10/18/23, 8:03 PM Visualizing Likert Scale Data.

What is the best way to effectively… | by Alana Pirrone | Nightingale | Medium

This member-only story is on us. Upgrade to access all of Medium.

Visualizing Likert Scale Data

Alana Pirrone · Follow

Listen Share More

Displaying Likert scale data

Likert scale, named after American psychologist Rensis Likert, measures a

To begin with, this is the example data I have used:

Responses displayed in a table

Creating the charts

Display 1: Small-multiple pie charts

Small-multiple pie charts

Display 2: Grouped bar chart

Grouped bar chart

Display 3: Small-multiple bar charts

Small-multiple bar charts

Display 4: Small-multiple waffle charts

Small-multiple waffle charts

Display 5: Large number and text

Large number and text option

Display 6: Stacked bar chart

Stacked bar chart

Display 7: Diverging stacked bar chart

Diverging stacked bar chart

Data Visualization Data Science Likert Scale Design Qualitative Research

Written by Alana Pirrone

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Alana Pirrone in Nightingale

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