Part of a whole
Radial stacked bar chart
Stacks component magnitudes outward along category spokes.
- Chart
- Composition
- Cyclic comparison
What it answers
How do components vary across cyclic categories?
- Shape
- Stacked bars along radial spokes
- What it shows
- Cyclic composition and component variation.
Example
The question
Which months bring the most tickets of each type?
Support tickets by month and type (radial stacked bars)
Illustrative data. It belongs to no company.
When to use it
Use it when
Cyclic composition with a small number of ordered categories.
Avoid it when
Precise totals or area comparisons that conflict with radial length.
How to read it
Read each spoke's stacked lengths and compare like components.
Note
Radial length and sector area are different encodings.
The data you need
- Layout
- Long table
- Fields
- Category or ordered position: text/date; Series: text; Value: number
- One row is
- One series value within one category or position. What is the grain?
- Rules
- Use one value per category-series pair after aggregation. Define category and series order.
- Optional
- Wide alternative: Category,North,South with one row per category.
- Preparation
- Validate the input grain and missing values. Use one value per category-series pair after aggregation. Define category and series order.
- Units
- Use the measured variable's stated unit consistently. No denominator is implied unless the value is a rate or proportion.
Worked example
CategoryA components 30,45 total 75; B has 34 and 40 total 74. Their radial totals are nearly equal, thoughA's second component is larger.
| Category | Series | Value |
|---|---|---|
| A | North | 30 |
| A | South | 45 |
| B | North | 34 |
| B | South | 40 |