Part of a whole
Waffle chart
Shows proportions or counts with equal-sized coloured cells.
- Chart
- Composition
- Progress
What it answers
How much of the whole does each category occupy?
- Shape
- Grid of equal-sized cells
- What it shows
- Share and progress in discrete units.
Example
The question
How do customers split by payment method?
Payments by method, 2025, one square = 1% of payments
Illustrative data. It belongs to no company.
When to use it
Use it when
Simple proportions and completion displays.
Avoid it when
When rounding is substantial or many tiny categories appear.
How to read it
Count or estimate equal cells using the cell-unit key.
Note
State units per cell and rounding.
The data you need
- Layout
- Long table
- Fields
- Category: text; Value: nonnegative number
- One row is
- One component of a defined whole. What is the grain?
- Rules
- Use mutually meaningful components and a positive total. Values may be counts or shares. Check rounded percentages.
- Optional
- Series or Parent for multiple wholes. Do not mix totals with their components.
- Preparation
- Check nonnegative components, reconcile the represented whole and aggregate duplicate categories. Define whether records are counts or already normalised shares.
- Units
- Show counts or shares of a named whole. Share = component / relevant total; name that total and the population/period it covers.
Worked example
On a 100-cell grid, fill 32 cells for A,40 for B,28 for C. Each cell means 1 percentage point.
| Category | Value |
|---|---|
| A | 32 |
| B | 40 |
| C | 28 |