A pictograph is a way to represent data using images. Each image in it represents a certain number of things. In other words, a pictograph uses pictures and symbols to convey information about the data given. Pictographs should be used very carefully, on one hand, they are very comfortable to use, while sometimes they may lead to misinterpretation of data as well. Whenever pictographs are drawn, it should look visually correct as most of the times the data is interpreted visually.
Example of Pictograph Representation
Let us consider an example, which will tell us how to interpret data using pictographs. In the given figure, the data of 100 students has been collected, who like different colours. The data given was as follows:
The data above can be represented as a pictograph as follows:
Where,
As we can see that the given data becomes more visually appealing and easy to interpret. Suppose, a question was asked, what is the difference between the students who like blue and red colors? By seeing the pictograph, we can directly interpret that there is the difference of 3 STUDENT and 1 STUDENT is equal to 5 students. So, the difference is of 15 students.
Consider another example in which the centimeter height of rainfall in different cities is given.
Let us draw a pictograph for the given data and try to interpret the given information.
Where each CLOUD represents 10 cm rainfall. Now, let us try to interpret some information from the above pictograph.
1. Which city had maximum rainfall as per the given data?
Delhi reported maximum rainfall, as the number of CLOUD are maximum for Delhi and since each CLOUD represents 10 cm rainfall, we have in total 12 CLOUD in Delhi, which means 120 cm of rainfall.
2. What is the sum of the total rainfall in all cities?
Total CLOUD in all cities are 42 and each CLOUD represents 10 cm of rainfall, so the sum total of rainfall in all cities is 420 cm.
This is how we draw a pictograph and interpret data from it. To learn more about data handling please download BYJU’s-The Learning App and keep learning.