No Region Receives What It Requests , Middle East Faces the Largest Absolute Funding Gap at $2.33B Figure 46.1 , No Region Receives What It Requests

A multi-set bar chart places multiple bars side-by-side within each category group. The viewer simultaneously reads two things: the length of individual bars (how large each series value is for that category) and the relative lengths of bars within the same group (how the series compare against each other at that category). The primary perceptual channel is length along a common baseline , the most accurate quantitative judgment available to the human visual system, according to Cleveland and McGill's hierarchy of perceptual tasks.

The data has a specific two-level comparison structure: the analyst needs to compare values across regions (is the Middle East gap larger than East Africa's?) and within regions (how does received compare to requested in the same region?). A multi-set bar chart handles both questions simultaneously. The within-group comparison is immediate , adjacent bars share a baseline and differ only in length.

A stacked bar chart would allow the total of all three series per region to be read directly , but the funding requested, received, and expenditure values do not sum to a meaningful whole. Stacking three pipeline stages would imply they are additive components of a total, which they are not.

framework , FT Visual Vocabulary The FT Visual Vocabulary places grouped bar charts in its Comparison category alongside simple bar charts and dot plots. Its note: use a grouped bar chart when the subcategory comparison within groups is as important as the comparison between groups. The test , if you only need to compare totals across categories, a simple bar chart suffices. If you need to see the internal breakdown, group or stack. If the components are not additive, group rather than stack.

Paste this into Claude Code to generate a working version of this chart, plus its data file. The result will not be a perfect replica , the goal is that the reader can run the prompt, get a chart of this type, and read its source. Generate a complete, self-contained multiset bar in D3 v7. Two files:

The ideas in this chapter didn't appear from nowhere. Howard Wainer spent decades arguing , in Visual Revelations and in dozens of Chance magazine columns , that most published graphs commit the same handful of mistakes again and again. His careful redesigns of misleading charts taught a generation of statisticians to see them. Howard Wainer, circa 1997. AI-generated portrait based on a public domain photograph (Wikimedia Commons).

The ideas in this chapter didn't appear from nowhere. Howard Wainer spent decades arguing , in Visual Revelations and in dozens of Chance magazine columns , that most published graphs commit the same handful of mistakes again and again. His careful redesigns of misleading charts taught a generation of statisticians to see them. Howard Wainer, circa 1997. AI-generated portrait based on a public domain photograph (Wikimedia Commons).