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Bubble Chart

Plot your numeric data with X and Y coordinates to easily depict components in a two-dimensional space.

Kristine Marhilevica avatar
Written by Kristine Marhilevica
Updated over 2 months ago

A bubble chart helps the viewer to visualize components in a two-dimensional space. The bubbles are positioned based on numeric fields that represent the X and Y coordinates. If desired, a third numeric field can be selected as the bubble size.

Ardoq bubble chart

Configuration

To use the bubble chart in Ardoq, open a workspace containing components with numeric fields. Use the field choosers in the toolbar to select which numeric fields to use as the bubbles' X, Y, and Radius values.

A bubble chart will be displayed based on those fields.

Ardoq bubble chart fields

Changing Context

Different sets of components can be displayed by changing the context in the navigation tree on the left side of the window. When a component with children is selected as the context, its children will be displayed. Otherwise, the component's "siblings" will be displayed. If the component in context is under the workspace root, then all components in the workspace root will be displayed.

In the event that there are no components with valid X and Y values, then the chart will search for valid components deeper in the component hierarchy, and display components at the level where valid components were found.

To view all the components in a workspace, or all components descending from the component in context, toggle the "Include all descendants" button in the view settings toolbar.

The component in context will be highlighted in the bubble chart. Clicking a bubble will also change the context, which will be reflected in the navigation tree.

Ardoq bubble chart component

Coloring

Bubbles are colored according to the style settings of the component, which can come from its individual style settings, or from the style settings of its type in the model. To apply color based on other criteria, use conditional formatting, which can be configured in the Perspectives window.

Ardoq bubble chart coloring

Backgrounds

The bubble chart supports three background styles: None, Grid, TIME, and Custom. This setting is configured using the chooser dropdown in the toolbar.

Ardoq bubble chart backgrounds

None and Grid simply determine whether or not to show gridlines behind the bubbles. TIME is a specialized mode that represents the TIME model.

TIME is an acronym for Tolerate/Invest/Migrate/Eliminate. When TIME is selected as the background style, the X and Y axes will range from 1 to 5, quadrant lines will be drawn at the midpoints of each axis, and labels will appear in each quadrant. In a standard TIME bubble chart, the axes measure business value and technical fit. These two measures place each item in a quadrant, thereby associating it with a business decision.

The X and Y fields do not have to represent the business value and technical fit. You can plot any number field in the TIME chart, as long as that field contains values between 1 and 5.

Ardoq TIME chart

When the background is set to Custom, the chart pops up a dialogue with options for axis ranges and quadrant labels. Here, you can define your own rules to get a layout similar to TIME mode. The quadrant lines will always be drawn at the midpoint between the X and Y-axis minimum and maximum. Type a number in the input fields to define the axis minimum and maximum, or leave them empty to automatically calculate the minimum and maximum based on the data in context.

Ardoq custom quadrants

Anti-Collision Labeling

It is common to try to display many bubbles in one chart, and displaying dozens or hundreds of labels in a small space can be a problem. Fortunately, the Ardoq bubble chart provides a solution. Labels will be rearranged to prevent overlaps. The label font will be scaled proportionally to its bubble. If more than 100 bubbles are present, only the largest 100 will be labeled. Also, if the identity of a bubble is unclear, the user can hover the mouse over it to show the label in a tooltip.

Ardoq anti-collision labelling


Using References in the Bubble Chart

The Bubble Chart can visualize values stored on your references when analyzing and comparing data related to a component or workspace. This approach is for example used for Application Risk Management Solution.

How It Works:

  1. Start by selecting a component from your workspace that will serve as the central focus of your analysis. This is referred to as the context component.

  2. Selecting Reference Fields:

    • For the X and Y axes, you can select reference field values, either incoming or outgoing, connected to the context component.

    • When a reference field is selected for the X or Y axis, the Bubble Chart will display the related components and plot their field values along the chosen axes.

    • The size of the bubbles can also be adjusted based on a reference field value.

  3. Populating the Dropdown Fields:

    • After selecting a reference type (incoming or outgoing), the Select X field and Select Y field dropdowns will be populated with reference field options that can be used to configure the chart.

    • You can then choose a Size field that determines the size of the bubbles in the chart, using either a reference field or a field from the referenced components.

  4. Labeling:

    • The labels on the bubbles correspond to the source or target components, depending on the selected reference field. The chart automatically labels the bubbles based on the opposite component to the reference field type (i.e., if an incoming reference field is selected, the bubble will show the name of the source component).

Example:

Let’s say you are analyzing the Customer Management business capability and the associated risks related to its supporting applications, using the Bubble Chart to plot different applications based on incoming reference fields that assess risk levels.

  • Context component: Customer Management (the core business capability in this analysis).

  • Incoming reference fields: The chart can use incoming reference fields like Risk Likelihood and Risk Impact to represent how these risks affect various applications.

  • X-axis field: Set this to Risk Likelihood, which represents the probability of a particular risk affecting an application within the Customer Management capability.

  • Y-axis field: Set this to Risk Impact, which measures the severity of the risk's effect on each application.

  • Size field: Set this to Technical Debt, a field representing the current level of technical debt for each application.

For example, the chart might display the following applications:

  • CRM System with a likelihood of 3 (X-axis), an impact of 4 (Y-axis), and a technical debt score of 250 (bubble size).

  • Customer Data Platform with a likelihood of 2 (X-axis), an impact of 5 (Y-axis), and a technical debt score of 100 (bubble size).

  • Contact Center Software with a likelihood of 4 (X-axis), an impact of 3 (Y-axis), and a technical debt score of 300 (bubble size).

  • Customer Analytics Tool with a likelihood of 5 (X-axis), an impact of 2 (Y-axis), and a technical debt score of 80 (bubble size).

This visualization helps you quickly see which applications supporting Customer Management are most exposed to risks and which ones have high technical debt, allowing you to prioritize investments or refactoring efforts.

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