VA Report Example: Different line styles in a Line Chart
There are many options for charts and graphs in Visual Analytics and I find the easiest way to learn about them is from examples. Here is an example of using the report level option for Style: Data element style rotation and selecting Rotate all attributes. By using this style it can improve the accessibility of an object when the attribute is available. In our example, it will rotate the line styles in the line chart but this option does not affect graphs that use color fills, like bar charts or pie charts. For additional information on report level options see the SAS Documentation.
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Why use different line styles?
Using different line styles improves accessibility of the line chart when colors can be difficult to differentiate. Or it could simply be for aesthetic preference. In my example, I used a black and gray palette to emphasize how easy it is to identify each line when a different style is used.
Where to set the style?
Since this is a report level option, you must first make sure the report name is selected in the Options pane.
Next, expand the Style group and scroll down to the Data element style rotation attribute. Use the drop-down and select Rotate all attributes.
That’s all you need to select for the Line Chart object to rotate through the line styles. Remember that this option will only be applied to objects that does not use the fill color attribute. Notice that the bar chart and heat map are not affected by this style attribute.
Why black and gray tones?
Black and gray tones are not required when creating and designing for maximum accessibility, but it can make decisions easy. In my example data there are only four Product Regions, but if you have a category with a higher cardinality then black and gray may not be an option.
Here is the same report next to the default color palette for the Light theme:
To be sure the regions had the same color, I applied a report level display rule:
Here are two additional color palettes that I was able to quickly apply using the report’s Display Rules. The only additional step was to change the heat map’s color gradient.
Additional Resources
This is only one feature that SAS Visual Analytics has to help make reports accessible. For additional information, please refer to this article or YouTube on Accessibility Features in SAS Visual Analytics and the SAS Documentation on creating accessible reports.
Please refer to these articles for additional SAS Visual Analytics features:
- SAS Visual Analytics Display Rules: Report – Level
- Use Report Themes to quickly change your data color palette
- SAS Beautiful Reports: Drawing Your Audience in with Color
Find more articles from SAS Global Enablement and Learning here.
