A Visual Guide To Understanding Cumulative Change

What is a Waterfall Chart?

A Visual Guide to Understanding Cumulative Change

Introduction

A waterfall chart, also known as a bridge chart, flying bricks chart, cascade chart, or Mario chart, is a type of data visualization that helps in understanding the cumulative effect of sequentially introduced positive or negative values. It is a specific type of bar chart that reveals the story behind the net change in somethings value between two points. For example, a waterfall chart can be used to show how different factors, such as revenue, expenses, and profit, contribute to the overall financial performance of a company. Waterfall charts are often used to visualize financial data, but they can also be used in other areas, such as project management and sales.

Key Features

Waterfall charts have a number of key features that make them effective for visualizing cumulative change:

• They use a horizontal bar chart to show the starting value, positive and negative changes, and the ending value.
• The bars are color-coded to indicate whether the change is positive or negative.
• The chart can be used to show multiple subtotals and totals, which makes it easy to see how different factors contribute to the overall change.

Benefits

Waterfall charts offer a number of benefits over other types of data visualization:

• They are easy to understand and interpret.
• They can show both positive and negative changes.
• They can be used to show multiple subtotals and totals.
• They can be used to visualize data from a variety of sources.