Google Data Studio – Basic and advanced uses of line shape
Since the 6th of June and in addition to rectangle and circle shapes, we can now draw lines in Google Data Studio.
Lines can be
- linear, elbow or curved elbow
- connected to other elements
- decorated with circles, diamonds or pointers at start and/or end, with custom sizes and colors
Basic uses
Thanks to this new element type, we can use it to:
- Create break lines between title and related widgets to facilitate the reading of page blocks
- Connect elements or draw static flow graphs
- Point and comment contents on fixed reports
- …
Advanced uses
As every feature, we can also customize it for more tricky and advanced use cases
- Conversion funnel
- Zooming effect to a specific element
- Icon creation
Conversion funnel
A big pointer can be used as a triangle for funnel representation purposes. With rectangle masks using the background color, we get trapezium.
In the example below, I’ve used 500 as pointer custom size.
Icon creation
Now, let’s create a click icon, combining 2 concentric circles and a pointer.
We use it to illustrate clicks and click through rate
Zooming effect
Let’s say that your need details about a metric (drill down, related trend…) but you wish to keep the macro view of it. Let’s take it as an opportunity also to improve story telling reporting, using the analogy of the magnifying glass.
- We create a magnifying glass icon like we’ve made previously for click icon
- We use a line with circle at start and pointer at end, and play with related sizes to get a zoom effect, then put detailed data.
