Trellis display

Abstract

AbstractDisplaying data with three or more dimensions effectively on a two‐dimensional paper or screen is not an easy task. Commonly used graphs such as pie charts and bar graphs do not allow for easy comparisons across all variables. This article discusses trellis display, a framework for the visualization of data through multiple panels organized in rows, columns, and pages. Each panel displays some of the variables with the values of the other variables held fixed. We demonstrate the effectiveness of trellis display by comparing identical sets of data first using traditional pie charts or bar graphs and then using trellis display. In all cases, the trellis figures show characteristics of the data more clearly than the more common graphs do. We discuss additional advantages of trellis display such as the ability of trellis figures to distinguish variables without the use of color. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.This article is categorized under: Statistical and Graphical Methods of Data Analysis > Statistical Graphics and Visualization