Vizzlo’s waterfall chart is the easiest and most beautiful alternative to the Excel waterfall chart. These strokes avoid distracting or adding clutter to the chart. Connecting lines help the viewer to see the increments. Intermediate values are shown as floating columns that begin based on the value of the previous column.
Commonly the initial and the final values are represented by whole columns starting at a zero baseline. Incremental bars add up, decremental bars subtract from the previous value.
The invisible series acts as a placeholder that hides the previous amount, to help the viewer understand changes in the distribution. At its core, the waterfall chart is a stacked bar chart with a visible and an invisible series of bars.
