What is Chord Diagram?
A chord diagram is a circular visualization that shows relationships and flows between categories using arcs (around the circle) and ribbons (connecting them). It highlights which groups are linked and the strength of those links at a glance.
A chord diagram arranges categories (groups, languages, topics, etc.) as segments around a circle. Connections between two categories are drawn as curved ribbons whose width represents the size or strength of the relationship (for example, count of people who selected both items). It’s a compact way to show pairwise relationships and co-occurrence patterns across a set of categories. Chord diagrams work well when you want to reveal connections between many categories at once, but they can become hard to read with too many segments or very dense connections.
Usage example
A school runs a family-services survey where parents can select multiple services they use (childcare, language support, food assistance, transport). A chord diagram shows which services are commonly used together — thick ribbons between childcare and language support indicate many families use both — helping the school understand service overlap and target outreach to families who need multiple supports.
Practical application
For Hearo users, chord diagrams help translate raw multilingual survey results into actionable insight about relationships across communities and topics. Examples: identify which complaints commonly appear together across languages, see which outreach channels connect to specific language communities, or find which services are frequently used by speakers of particular languages. That helps prioritise translation resources, design combined interventions, and explain findings to stakeholders. To be effective, limit the number of categories, group small items into an “Other” bucket, and use interactive labels or hover details so readers can explore individual connections without being overwhelmed.
FAQ
When should I use a chord diagram instead of a bar chart or network graph?
Use a chord diagram when you want to emphasise pairwise relationships or co-occurrence across a fixed set of categories (for example, which languages respondents use alongside each other, or which topics appear together in feedback). Bar charts are better for single-category totals; network graphs can show complex directed relationships but may be less compact and harder to read for symmetric pairwise counts.
How do I read the ribbons and segments?
Each arc around the circle represents a category and its arc length can show its total size. Ribbons connect two categories; ribbon thickness indicates the volume of the relationship (more respondents, stronger co-occurrence). Colouring and hover labels should be used to reveal exact counts or percentages for clarity.
What are common pitfalls to avoid with chord diagrams?
Avoid including too many categories — too many ribbons create visual clutter. Aggregate small categories, sort or group related segments to improve readability, and provide interactive or textual summaries for accessibility. Also remember chord diagrams show associations, not causation, and may mask directionality unless the visualization explicitly encodes it.