Table vs Chart View

Table vs chart view is the choice between two ways of showing one dataset: a table for exact numbers and ranking, a chart for pattern and trend.

This choice is not a matter of taste but a decision about the question: each question calls for one of the two. If you ask 'which page has the most views and exactly how many', a table is the answer; if you ask 'which way did views go over the month', a chart. The common mistake is using the wrong tool for the question: reading a trend off a fifty-row table is nearly impossible, and finding one point's exact value off a line chart is hard. The healthy rule is to see these two not as rivals but as complements: the chart reveals the pattern, then the table gives the numbers behind it, and drill-down emerges from that back-and-forth. A good tool lets you switch between the two views and keeps one's selections synced in the other.