Normalized stacked area chart

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Updated at December 10, 2024

Wizard sections
Creating a normalized area chart
Recommendations

A normalized area chart shows changes to the contribution of each category in a measure value over a time interval. Areas are highlighted in different colors and located above each other. The chart shows the percentage of areas and not their absolute value. The width of an area indicates its ratio to the total amount represented as 100%. For example, the percentage of different expenses in the total budget amount.

normalized-area-chart

Source table

Month	Gasoline	Rent	Food	Utility bills
January 2019	100	600	300	500
February 2019	150	600	250	700
March 2019	100	600	450	400
April 2019	120	600	370	510
May 2019	100	600	300	530
June 2019	130	600	310	600
July 2019	150	600	330	510
August 2019	120	600	250	550
September 2019	110	650	380	500
October 2019	120	650	300	550
November 2019	130	650	310	540
December 2019	100	650	400	550

This type of chart is used to show a change to the proportion of categories, while their totals are not critical. For example, to show how the percentage of product categories changes in the total sales amount.

normalized-area-chart-subcategory

Source table

Month	Home appliances	Household goods	Household cleaners
January 2019	128K	55K	26K
February 2019	97K	79K	18K
March 2019	187K	105K	41K
April 2019	188K	137K	34K
May 2019	230K	121K	43K
June 2019	256K	162K	59K
July 2019	284K	206K	67K
August 2019	409K	204K	72K
September 2019	314K	209K	86K
October 2019	324K	262K	79K
November 2019	385K	238K	101K
December 2019	451K	307K	111K

Wizard sections

Section section	Description
X	Dimension. You can specify only one field here. This dimension is usually a date. If this is the case, make sure to specify the `Date` data type for this field in the dataset. This is required for correct sorting and signature display. For better visualization, you can group dates into weeks, months, and years. For more information, see Field settings.
Y	Measure. You can specify multiple measures. If you add more than one measure to a section, the Colors section will contain a dimension named Measure Names.
Colors	Measure Names dimension or field. Affects the color of lines. To remove Measure Names, delete measures from the Y axis.
Sorting	Dimension or measure. You can use a dimension from the X and Color sections or a measure from the Y axis. This section affects the sorting of values on the X axis or areas along the Y axis. The sorting direction is marked with an icon next to the field: for ascending or for descending. To change the sorting direction, click the icon.
Labels	Measure. Displays measure values on the chart. If multiple measures are added to the Y section, drag Measure Values to this section. Markup functions are supported. For `String` type fields, you can configure using basic Markdown syntax: click the icon before the field name and enable Markdown.
Split	Dimension. Splits a chart horizontally by the selected dimension's values. The maximum number of splits per chart is 25.
Filters	Dimension or measure. Used as a filter.

Creating a normalized area chart

To create a normalized area chart:

Warning

If you use a new DataLens object model with workbooks and collections:

Go to the DataLens home page. In the left-hand panel, select Collections and workbooks.
Open the workbook, click Create in the top-right corner, and select the appropriate object.

Follow the guide from step 4.

Go to the DataLens home page.
In the left-hand panel, select Charts.
Click Create chart → Chart.
At the top left, click Select dataset and specify the dataset to visualize.
Select Normalized area chart as the chart type.
Drag a dimension from the dataset to the X section. The values will be displayed in the lower part of the chart on the X axis.
Drag one or more measures from the dataset to the Y section. The values will be displayed as areas along the Y axis.
Drag a dimension from the dataset to the Color section. Colored areas will indicate the share of an individual category in the total measure value.

Recommendations

If the values of the categories contain a large amount of text, try to reduce it. Then the signatures on the diagram will look more accurate. You can use string functions in the calculated fields or conditional operators CASE.
Do not display more than three to five areas on the chart.
To make it easier to track the dynamics, place the largest or most important categories closer to the chart base. To do this, drag the measure to the Sorting section or set up their order in the Y section. For example, when comparing budget expenses.

Chart example

To monitor the budget spending dynamics by the Gasoline category, place it close to the chart base.

Chart example

If there is another important category, place it by the upper boundary of the chart. This way the areas will have clear boundaries to help visually compare their values. For example, to compare Utility bills and Rent.

Chart example
You can split a chart by dimension into a number of small charts that are convenient to compare to one another. To do this, drag a dimension from the dataset to the Split section.

Chart example
To display the absolute values of variables, use a stacked area chart.