Getting Started With ‘Small Multiples’ — an Underused but Powerful Form of Data Viz

I know that I had promised to write about the “waterfall” chart as part of making a series on Getting Started: The What, Where, Why & How of Data Visualisation. But I must thank Elijah Meeks for inspiring me to write about small multiples instead through his article — The 3 waves of data visualization. He had explained how the first wave of data visualization was centred around the work of Edward Tufte who had emphasized clarity and simplicity. And this had motivated me to write this article.

Small multiple charts are widely underused though they are one of the best tools to derive insights from data. It is estimated that only 1 in 10 data analysts use small multiple. A major reason for their underuse is the tediousness involved in creating them using most of the current available tools: R, Excel, Tableau, etc.

So let’s get started with the what, why & how of small multiple data viz (sometimes called trellis chart, lattice chart, grid chart, or panel chart):

‘What’ is a small multiple viz?

According to Wikipedia: A small multiple (sometimes called trellis chart, lattice chart, grid chart, or panel chart) is a series of similar graphs or charts using the same scale and axes, allowing them to be easily…