Charts / Glossary

Chart words, in plain English.

Every term linked to the charts that use it.

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A

Area
The filled space under a line, read for volume over time.
Used in011 Area 013 Overlapping areas 014 Streamgraph
Axis
The scale along the edge of a plot that gives marks their value.
Used in001 Bars 010 Line 034 Scatter

Baseline
The zero or reference line that bars grow from.
Used in001 Bars 004 Diverging bars 042 Waterfall
Bin
A range of values grouped into one bar, so a distribution shows its shape.
Used in006 Histogram 071 Volume profile
Bubble
A circle whose area carries a value.
Used in035 Packed bubbles

Category
A named group a mark belongs to, such as a plan or a region.
Used in001 Bars 002 Grouped bars 007 Horizontal bars
Cohort
A group that started in the same period, followed over time.
Used in026 Cohort
Confidence interval
The range a value likely falls in, drawn as a band or a whisker.
Used in015 Forecast band 050 Dot plot with intervals
Cumulative
A running total: each point adds everything before it.
Used in060 Gains curve 077 Lorenz curve

Delta
The change against an earlier period, shown next to the hero value.
Used inHearth widget hero
Distribution
How values spread across a range: where they cluster and where they thin out.
Used in006 Histogram 043 Box plot 055 Ridgeline
Diverging scale
Values that run in two directions from a midpoint, such as gains and losses.
Used in004 Diverging bars 063 Likert
Domain
The range of values an axis covers, from its lowest to its highest tick.
Used in001 Bars 010 Line

Encoding
The visual property that carries a value: length, position, angle, area or colour.
Used in001 Bars 034 Scatter 017 Donut

Flow
Volume moving from one stage or place to another.
Used in031 Sankey 048 Chord 032 Funnel

Gridline
A faint line across the plot at each tick, so values read without a ruler.
Used in001 Bars 010 Line

Hierarchy
Parts that sit inside other parts, several levels deep.
Used in022 Sunburst 030 Treemap 068 Icicle

Mark
One drawn shape that stands for one data point: a bar, a dot or a slice.
Used in001 Bars 034 Scatter 017 Donut
Median
The middle value: half the data sits above it, half below.
Used in043 Box plot

Outlier
A value far from the rest, drawn on its own so it is not hidden.
Used in043 Box plot 034 Scatter

Quartile
The values that cut sorted data into four equal parts; the box in a box plot.
Used in043 Box plot

Range
The span between a low and a high value, drawn as one bar or one line.
Used in005 Floating range bars 066 Dumbbell
Ranking
Order by value; a bump chart follows how the order changes.
Used in045 Bump 007 Horizontal bars

Series
One set of values drawn together, such as one line or one colour of bars.
Used in012 Multi-line 002 Grouped bars 003 Stacked bars
Share
A part divided by its total, read as a percent.
Used in017 Donut 018 Semi donut 020 Progress ring
Size class
One of four fixed chart sizes, XS to L, each laid out on its own.
Used inAll 100+ types
Small multiples
The same chart repeated per group on one shared scale.
Used in055 Ridgeline 065 Ring grid
Stacked
Parts placed on top of each other so the total stays visible.
Used in003 Stacked bars 014 Streamgraph

Tick
A small mark on an axis at a round value, with its label.
Used in001 Bars 010 Line
Time series
Values recorded at regular moments, drawn left to right.
Used in010 Line 011 Area 036 Candlestick
Tooltip
The label that appears on hover with the exact value.
Used in010 Line 034 Scatter

Whisker
The line from a box to the lowest and highest values that are not outliers.
Used in043 Box plot 050 Dot plot with intervals

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