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Graphical widgets for WordPress help you improve your dashboard

Mar 11, 2025
Graphical widgets for WordPress

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In many situations, presenting data in an engaging format that's easy to digest can offer many benefits. Graphical widgets available for WordPress let you transform simple numbers and data into a visual and informative display that appeals. Most of the time, they will come in the form of the plugin which allows you use the information inside WordPress.

In this post this article, we'll discuss visual widgets that work with WordPress and will cover the various kinds you can choose from, the situations you'd employ them in, and more. In the second half of the post we'll review a few plugins that will help you implement graphical widgets and then guide you on how to utilize them to meet your specific needs.

Visual widgets and understanding in WordPress

A line graph showing data for cats and two blanket types over time periods A through N. The cat line peaks at around 8 units in period F before declining, while the blanket lines remain low and steady throughout.
Graphical widgets of a line chart at the top of a web site.

These widgets will have dynamic components that use different visual representations--such as charts, graphs, maps, and progress bars--to convey complex information at a glance. This can help you improve communication with your readers and help readers comprehend and understand the information quickly. This can also increase your user satisfaction and retention.

Although there are a variety of ways to present your data, graphical widgets share a few features in common:

  • They will display data in a dynamic way.
  • You'll be able to offer interactive components to aid people 'dive' into your information.
  • There are a variety of scenarios that you might be able to provide instant update to the data that you provide.

But, they're not just about adding visual flair to your website. They're essential to visualizing and interacting with your raw data.

How graphical widgets could help your on-site data presentation

There are numerous benefits to using graphics to convey a message. On the whole, visual content is big business and extremely important for online marketing.

To you and your information There are many other benefits to consider:

  • Enhanced data visualization. Complex datasets can be more accessible, letting users grasp trends and patterns easily. They can also simplify how you present information using versatile, adaptable, and digestible visual formats.
  • Modern aesthetics. If you get the look right, adding widgets can enhance your website's appearance. The polished, professional appearance can give your data presentation an edge.

Visual information usually has an advantage over text within any area, meaning it is possible to present important data points in a way which makes them stick.' As such, making use of them in a proper method on your website should be an absolute priority.

When to use graphic widgets for your WordPress website

If you do too much of a positive thing can become monotonous and saturating. That's why you should employ graphical widgets with care and attention.

The good news is there are plenty of situations where it is possible to use graphic widgets. The most obvious time to break out the charts is when you are trying to simplify complex concepts for the readers you are trying to reach. There are however other special cases that are not as obvious:

  • Presenting complex data sets, where you need to showcase massive amounts of information or complex relationships between data points.
  • Comparing multiple variables to illustrate the relationships or differences between various data categories.
  • Presenting geographical data in specific locations or where your data needs the spatial context.

If the visual format provides quality and clarity to your data, then it's likely going make the perfect choice to use a graphic widget.

There are a variety of graphic widgets that are available for WordPress

Data visualization can be found in a variety of forms and every display will suit different data and presentation needs. It's not necessary to go into the details of the various ways you can display your data however there are several common and notable options worth mentioning.

Typical charts and graphs including bar charts pie graphs, line graphs and area graphs are a good shout for data visualization. They are the most common of the method:

The Wikipedia statistics dashboard shows total page views over the last two years. A search bar at the top lets users explore topics or browse questions. The main content displays a bar graph with green bars representing monthly page view data. Sidebar options include various metrics and filters. The total views indicated is 265 billion.
The Wikipedia site displays the bar chart of the total number of page views.

Scatter plots can be a bit more complex but will let you demonstrate the connection between two variables:

A scatter plot graph showing box office report data for May, June, and July 2021. The x-axis ranges from 0 to 12, while the y-axis ranges from 0 to 20. Colored dots represent data points for each month, with an overall upward trend visible across all three months.
A scatter graph for data on box office from the British Film Institute (BFI).
A world map displaying yellow markers with numbers, indicating the locations of WordCamps across different countries and continents. The map shows a concentration of markers in North America, Europe, and parts of Asia.
The main WordCamp site lists all the WordCamp events around the world in an interactive and integrated map.

Counters and progress bars are specifically designed for achievement milestones. Here, you'll turn to number counters which use dynamic counting to a final value. The circular progress bar can be used to show the percentage of accomplishments. You can also do this with a linear horizontal or vertical bar:

The GitHub repository page for WordPress showing the Community Standards section. The checklist indicates that the project has completed items for description, README, code of conduct, and license, with some items still pending such as contributing guidelines and security policy.
The Community Standards insight on the official WordPress GitHub page shows a public time-line bar that is linked to the tasks listed under.
Two contrasting urban scenes are presented vertically. The top image shows a daytime view of a crowded street with buildings and numerous hanging electrical wires and light bulbs. The bottom image depicts a dimly lit, wet alleyway at night with neon signs and vending machines visible in the distance.
Utilizing a lively and interactive before and after slider can help you showcase differences in two images which are otherwise identical.

It allows you to compare the two images using a dynamic slider that moves across the image and reveals one version and revealing the other. This may not be a lot of activity in your usage scenarios, but remember--every visualization type has an ideal application.

In which cases you'd need graphic widgets (including instances)

The type of visualization that you choose to use is important, however how you use the widget (and what you use it for) is just as important. That is to say, there are many applications in which using graphical widgets will have a great advantages.

There are many other applications that you can think of. Apart from common use cases There are other applications which you'll see frequently but do not associate with visualization of data. In the coming sections, we'll cover a few of these uses.

Applications for businesses

One of the most popular applications of graphic widgets is to essentially present your top metrics. Businesses will find this an absolute advantage in terms of showing information in a pleasing way. A bar chart is easy to understand using the correct value of the axis and can help show trends in sales over time or compare different products or services.

"Target" is just one of many companies who use it to show annual revenue growth:

Financial performance infographic for Target showing Total Revenue, Operating Income, Net Earnings, and Diluted EPS from 2018 to 2023. Bar charts show year-over-year growth across all metrics, with 2023 highlighted in red. Performance percentages and five-year CAGR are provided for each category.
Target uses bar charts for comparing performance year-on-year across a number of data points.

This also showcases how these basic presentations could help to illustrate the relationship between different indicators, like the cost of acquisition for customers or their lifetime value. Stacked bar charts can also show this kind of analysis. WordPress employs this method in its Plugin Directory for displaying the breakdown of which version of a plugin users install:

The Advanced screen for a WordPress plugin that shows active versions, downloads per day graph, and plugin details. Those details include the version number, active installations, and ratings. The plugin has over four million active installations and a 4.5-star rating.
The WordPress Plugin Directory uses stacked bar charts to show which versions are downloaded by users.
The Elementor website showing a particle visualization of the countries with the most users in its community. Three colored circles represent the United States (largest), Germany (medium), and United Kingdom (smallest). Decorative constellation-like lines connect the circles.
Particle effects can also work to display data. Elementor uses it to display details about its customer base.

Other times it is possible to highlight milestones in your business or progress on projects. Flourish utilizes a timeline to show its past, which can have the effect of boosting brand loyalties:

A timeline showing the evolution of Flourish, a data visualization tool. Key milestones include the initial idea in 2016, developer SDK in 2017, and the Flourish editor launch in 2018. The timeline also shows struggles with data storytelling in 2016 and promotions to journalists in 2018.
The Flourish website uses an attractive timeline that showcases the history of the site.

E-commerce actually runs in parallel to general commercial applications. So, anything in this article could be applicable to stores, too. But there are some specific methods that this sector can present data and data.

E-commerce metrics

For example, SRFACE uses an interactive style guide that explains the features of its wetsuits and visualize the style of each model:

A GIF for a product page for a women's black wetsuit. It shows an image of the wetsuit, pricing information, size and thickness options, and product details such as shipping and warranty information. Throughout, the user navigates through the sizes, styles, and on-product information, which displays on-screen.
Interactive style guides could be an important benefit for online stores as they provide potential customers a more immersive experience.

It's similar to a business tool, but you could also use charts and graphs to help visitors understand patterns in the adoption of products. WordPress Theme Directory WordPress Theme Directory does this using bar charts:

A bar graph showing daily downloads of a WordPress theme over time. The chart indicates active installations of over one million. Download numbers fluctuate, with several spikes reaching around 12,000 downloads per day, interspersed with periods of lower activity around 6,000-8,000 downloads daily. The x-axis spans from November 2023 to July 2024.
The WordPress Theme Directory includes a bar chart which shows the download figures for each theme over time.

Monitoring of metrics in real-time

Live visualizations can give you an exhilarating feel because you see a continuous development of .

GoFundMe is the biggest crowdfunding site on earth Every fundraiser receives a thermometer or progress tracking bar that gets filled up when a goal nears:

A GoFundMe fundraising page for a girls' Little League softball team. The page shows a team photo of young girls in uniforms holding a Central Little League Softball Champions banner. The fundraiser has raised $2,450 of a $12,000 goal to help the team get to the Little League World Series.
The most well-known crowdfunding site GoFundMe makes use of progress bars and thermometer visualization to show the extent to which a campaign has come to a conclusion.

Infographics and animated counters assist in showing the actual effect of your product or services. As an example, the primary WordPress.org website has a dedicated page to display the number of downloads of WordPress.org, the platform's core that is updated each minute:

A dark-themed webpage that displays the number of WordPress 6.6 downloads, which is 44,316,991. The page has navigation links for Releases, Nightly, Counter, and Source at the top. After a few seconds, the number increases, which shows a real-time update of the number of downloads.
WordPress.org's download counter updates every minute and displays the daily running total.

It even has a tally graph for you to monitor your site's uptime across our diverse products:

An uptime report from the Status page showing 100 percent uptime for the main .com site and Affiliate Dashboard over 90 days. The My Dashboard has 99.89 percent uptime with a few brief outages indicated by red and yellow bars.
Its Status page has an tally graph that displays the duration of any downtime.

The live update method has practical benefits other than simply showboating and flair. In certain situations, it is necessary to keep up-to-date information on certain measurements.

Internal analytics

The Google Analytics dashboard showing real-time website traffic data. The interface displays a world map with user locations, active user counts, and graphs of user activity over time. Sidebars show various report categories and metrics such as user sources and page views.
Google Analytics crams many different kinds of data visualizations onto a single page.
The DeploymentHawk dashboard displaying website performance metrics, including scores for Performance (96), Accessibility (96), Best Practices (95), and SEO (100). Additional performance metrics such as First Contentful Paint and Largest Contentful Paint are also shown.
The DeploymentHawk software utilizes Google Lighthouse information and displays it in custom charts, graphs, and counters.
The My Dashboard interface. It displays various metrics and charts including resource usage, bandwidth, visits, and CDN usage for WordPress sites. The left sidebar shows navigation options for different hosting services.
The My dashboard that displays different graphs and charts built on the data collected from sites.

Gaming is always a good option when you've got completion goals to meet. Todoist does this using basic line and bar charts along with its 'karma' points system:

The Todoist dashboard showing 4744 completed tasks. A circular progress indicator displays the weekly goal of 26/30 tasks completed. Additional metrics include streak information and a bar chart comparing task completion over the past 4 weeks.
The Todoist application employs gamification strategies to make sure you complete projects with maximum efficiency.

Additionally, certain nonprofits release their own internal research findings. This is a distinctive distinction between public-facing presentation and the use of data to gauge internal performance. As an example, the Gates Foundation takes its own philosophy and mission, applies it towards the future which, in turn, creates an excellent instance of predictive statistics

A graph showing the opportunity to save millions of lives through innovation accessibility. The stacked area chart projects 2 million lives saved by 2030 and 6.4 million by 2040, broken down by region: Sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, and Other LMICs.
The Gates Foundation uses unique bar charts that help to guide its mission and goals.

With this flexibility in visualization style and content You can also take advantage of the flexibility of graphic widgets. The rest of this post will show you how to achieve this using WordPress.

The plugins you use to show visual widgets on WordPress

1. Visualizer: Charts, Graphs, and Charts

ThemeIsle's Visualizer is a great option for free graphic widget plugins. It can be used with many charts and is easy to install, just like its themes and other plugins.

The WordPress.org header banner image for the Visualizer plugin. The image showcases various chart types and data visualizations, emphasizing features such as 14+ charts, shortcodes, chart animations, and live editing capabilities.
The Visualizer header image for the plugin is from WordPress.org.

It provides four chart types, a Data editor, a similar to a spreadsheet interface and a variety of customizable options. The plugin also integrates into Google Charts (and the other Google APIs). While this plugin has full capabilities it is required to buy the version with premium features ($199 annually) to access more chart as well as editing formats.

The trial version is suitable for most users, though, especially those who want basic, but stunning visualizing data.

2. Data Tables Generator created by Supsystic

It's at first glance that Data Tables Generator doesn't seem like it fits this list of graphical widgets that are compatible with WordPress. As its name suggests, you can only create text data tables. It's true for the free version, however, the premium version comes with a lot more functionality, such as graphs and charts.

The Data Tables Generator plugin header image from WordPress.org. There is a set of icons and interface elements representing features of a data management system, including data types, formulas, search functionality, sorting, and table creation tools.
The Data Tables Generator plugin header image from WordPress.org.

The good news is that your creations can look fantastic out of the box. You have all sorts of visual options like line and bar charts Donut charts, bubble graphs and many more. Also, we believe the filtering and sorting options are the best in the industry.

This means the plugin will work well to websites that require the highest level of interactivity, especially if they also require tables of data and visual data representations.

However, there are no charts or graphs available in the free version. A lifetime license is just $89 however, Data Tables Generator is a steal for the functionality you get.

3. WpDataTables

Like Data Tables Generator, wpDataTables isn't the only one with a concentration on graphs and charts. You can do it with this plugin and the results are quality. Sites with massive complicated datasets are likely to check out the plugin.

The wpDataTables plugin header image from WordPress.org. The banner features a dark blue background with the plugin logo and text The Best Tables & Charts WordPress Table Plugin. Sample tables, charts, and pricing plans are displayed floating on the right side of the image.
The wpDataTables header image comes from WordPress.org.

The features hidden in the more than 70 types of charts included in Premium Edition (starting with $39 for a year) is worth the effort, even with the learning curve.

4. amCharts: Charts and Maps

The amCharts plugin header image from WordPress.org. It shows a white sinusoidal wave overlaid on gray vertical bar charts against a purple gradient background. The foreground shows a black silhouette of a mountainous or hilly landscape, creating a layered effect with the chart elements.
AmCharts' header image is from WordPress.org.

The capabilities of amCharts are vast, and comes with a high level of customisation. But, you must use amCharts' interface amCharts interface to build the widgets that are graphical, which involves switching between two platforms.

If you require a wide variety of chart types, and are happy using the third-party interface, amCharts could work for you. However, there's no free tier to access graphs or charts. Therefore, you'll require a premium subscription that starts from $80 per year.

5. Graphina - Elementor Charts and Graphs

The Graphina plugin header image from WordPress.org. The banner shows colorful examples of radial charts, line graphs, and other data visualizations on a dark background.
The header image of Graphina is from WordPress.org.

This may sound unbelievable, but the premium version ramps up capabilities to make Graphina the most advanced graphical widget plugin available for WordPress. Of course, you'll need Elementor (or Divi) to benefit from the capabilities, which can be a stumbling block. With a price of $49 you could consider making the switching for one of these well-known page builders.

6. Ninja Charts

The final plugin on our list is totally free and does not have a cost-based pricing or premium tier. Ninja Charts might be the ideal solution for you if this is your first time using data visualization but has the functionality to compete with the best.

The Ninja Charts plugin header image from WordPress.org. It shows a businessman sitting on geometric shapes while using a tablet, connected to icons representing spreadsheets, charts, and analytics. A rising bar graph and dashboard elements are shown on the right-hand side.
The Ninja Charts header image from WordPress.org.

It provides a wide range of chart styles and provides users the option of customizing it to meet your specific needs. The user interface is easy to use, and it offers an extensive integration with another plugin developed by the same company, Ninja Tables.

Even so, there are limits. Other users complain regarding the inability to provide essential functions, like data aggregation, as an example. It's not cheap, though, and we believe that it will work for many different websites thanks to the functionality it provides.

How do you add graphic widgets to WordPress by using the Visualizer plugin

We'll quickly go through how to add visual widgets to your WordPress site. The widget we'll choose to use is Visualizer because we were impressed enough with it that we made it our top choice.

In Visualizer the user is presented with this choice upon installing:

The Visualizer plugin start wizard. It shows options to select different chart types such as a pie/donut chart, bar chart, and line chart. The interface includes a progress indicator at the top and a Save and Continue button at the bottom.
The Visualizer plug-in's wizard that is the start of its operation.

Most likely, there'll exist an Add New Chart button somewhere within the plugin's admin panel.

The WordPress admin dashboard displaying the Visualizer Library interface. A red-highlighted Add New button is prominent at the top. Below are drop-down filters for types, libraries, dates, and sources. The main content area shows the beginning of a line graph labeled #216 with a blue line representing Cats data.
Making a chart with the Visualizer plugin within WordPress.
The data editing interface for Visualizer. The left-hand side shows a text area with comma-separated values, while the right-hand side offers options to import data from various sources such as files, URLs, and databases.
Making edits to the data for charts within the Visualizer plugin.

Next, check out the customization options available to you. Visualizer includes these within the chart design screen. The chart creator has settings for all types of factors like the title position, axis labels grid lines, chart size and placement, and much more:

The Visualizer Settings tab, which shows a line graph interface with three data series labeled Cats, Blanket1, and Blanket2. The right-hand side shows the options to adjust General Settings, including a drop-down menu to set the position of the chart title.
Customizing design options in Visualizer.

The last thing to do is insert your graph or chart on your site. Numerous plugins employ shortcodes for this. You have a simple copy and paste into your desired post or page:

A portion of the Visualizer plugin interface that shows chart settings and a shortcode. The shortcode appears in a text box with a Copy button beside it. Below, there are tabs for Source, Settings, and Help, with expandable sections for General Settings and Horizontal Axis Settings visible.
A shortcode for a Visualizer chart.

Visualizer also provides a Block for this it, which is convenient and is in line with the modern WordPress design.

The most common practices for showing your graphical widgets

You should consider the following aspects when you present your graphs and charts. Simply put, you should treat them like the important and valuable content they're in, and try to reduce the amount of elements you present. If you want to know more look at the following points:

Summary

Graphical widgets on WordPress can help you visualize your typical text data on your website. This approach to data display and visualization is able to transform complicated information into a more digestible format. The data can be displayed using charts, graphs Interactive maps, charts, and much more.

A good plugin for the job is crucial, and we cover a lot in this post. Visualizer is an excellent choice, as is Graphina. However, the correct application for the job depends on your specific needs. The tool can be a significant, positive influence on the performance of your website as well as its user-friendliness.

Are graphical widgets designed for WordPress important enough for you to implement? We'd love to hear your comments in the below!

Jeremy Holcombe

Senior Editor at WordPress Web Developer Senior Editor at WordPress, Web Developer Content writer. Outside of everything related to WordPress, I enjoy golf, the beach, as well as movies. I also have tall people problems.