Uncommon chart types: Waffle charts
If you thought a pie chart was the only food-related chart type out there, think again! There is the donut chart – basically just a pie chart with a hole in the middle – but as a Belgian, I am particularly fond of what’s called a waffle chart. It’s a great alternative to a pie chart, and very easy to make. Oh dear, my stomach’s growling already!
What is a waffle chart?
A waffle chart is basically a square display, usually consisting of 100 smaller squares arranged in a 10-by-10 layout. The squares are colored according to the proportions you are aiming to visualize, similarly to how you would color different slices of a pie chart. As this square layout somewhat resembles a delicious waffle, this immediately explains the name of the chart:
However, compared to a pie chart, a waffle chart is much easier to read – our brain is not well suited to compare different angles and slices, but we can quite easily compare different areas.
Alternative waffle charts
You will notice that many waffle charts are not made up of squares, but of alternative shapes, usually circles. Other shapes, such as small icons, are also possible – in this case we are approaching the realm of pictogram charts.
Another alternative are waffle charts consisting of more (or less) than 100 units, where the items represent actual numbers rather than fractions or percentages:
Here, each square represents $10 million, rather than 1%.
In the latter case, there are some similarities with charts we typically see after elections, showing the distribution of the different seats. One could argue that these kind of charts (‘Parliament charts’) are just a form of ‘warped’ waffle charts:
A Parliament Chart created using Flourish.
Some people prefer to turn their waffle charts by 45°, simply for design purposes, but well, some people are just weird:
Creating waffle charts
Making waffle charts is maybe a little bit tedious, but very simple! For example, you could create square cells in Excel, and color them using intelligent cell formatting to recreate the effect. If you google ‘waffle chart Excel‘ you will immediately get hundreds of blog posts and video tutorials describing the necessary steps.
Or you could take your favourite graphics software (such as Paint.NET, GIMP, or Inkscape), draw 100 identical shapes and color them according to your data.
And some people have managed to do it in Infogram, apparently.
More waffles than you'll ever need
To conclude, some wonderful things people have done with waffle charts, including this tile grid map of waffle charts about internet use in Africa:
Apparently created by one.org, but I can’t find the exact source!
Oh, and a circular waffle chart is sometimes called a plum pudding chart, after J.J. Thomson’s plum pudding model for the atom, which is in turn named after a Christmas cake. The more you know!
Finally, if you would ever think about creating a 3D waffle chart… it’s not impossible, but let’s say it’s frowned upon. Maybe we should keep that 3rd dimension for real waffles only?
More uncommon chart types? We have already covered:
- Slopegraphs
- Waffle charts
Read more:
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Making a data visual noise-free
Removing noise from a data visual is not only about taking things away such as gridlines, axes or legends. That’s just one part of it, which we could call removing physical noise. Improving the signal-to-noise ratio is often also about adding little things that help our audience better understand the visual. We are helping them by removing mental noise, or mental barriers.
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Creating charts in Excel can be a very powerful tool for making sense of complex data sets, and for visualizing them. But the default options are not always the most pretty or effective ones. Here are our top three tips to create better Excel charts.
A powerful chart has a high signal-to-noise ratio
‘Less is more’. It’s a crucial principle in most of our communication, and in data visualization in particular. Because of my background as a physicist, I prefer to talk about the ‘signal-to-noise ratio’. The message - our signal - should be amplified as much as possible, giving it all of the attention. Everything that can distract from our message - the noise - should be removed.
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