Survey & social science

Alluvial diagram example: attitude change before and after an intervention

Example alluvial diagram of survey respondents’ attitudes before, after and six months after an intervention, with a diverging color scheme and percentage labels.

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Negative (31.6%)Neutral (38.4%)Positive (29.9%)Negative (16.4%)Negative (16.4%)Neutral (35.0%)Neutral (35.0%)Positive (48.6%)Positive (48.6%)Negative (16.4%)Neutral (32.2%)Positive (51.4%)BeforeAfterFollow-up
Respondents’ attitude at three survey waves, colored by their attitude before the intervention. Illustrative data.

About this example

Pre–post survey results are usually summarised as two bar charts, which hide who changed their answer. An alluvial diagram shows the movement between answer categories, for example how many initially negative respondents became neutral or positive.

For ordered answers such as negative, neutral and positive, a diverging color scheme (orange, gray, blue) reads naturally. Percentage labels make waves with different response counts easier to compare.

The data

BeforeAfterFollow-upRespondents
NegativeNegativeNegative22
NegativeNeutralNeutral18
NegativeNeutralPositive9
NegativePositivePositive7
NeutralNeutralNeutral25
NeutralPositivePositive30
NeutralPositiveNeutral8
NeutralNegativeNegative5
PositivePositivePositive41
PositiveNeutralNeutral6
PositiveNeutralPositive4
PositiveNegativeNegative2

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