✈️Why Stare at Spreadsheets When You Can Sankey?

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// Flow your data. Save your sanity

So staring at a giant Excel sheet full of numbers and locations is about as exciting as watching paint dry… in slow motion… on a spreadsheet.

But guess what? There’s a better way to look at complex flow data without frying your brain.
Say hello to your new best friend: Sankey diagrams.

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🎯 What Even Is a Sankey Diagram?

A Sankey diagram is a fancy name for a flow chart that actually makes sense.
It shows how stuff moves — from one thing (source) to another (target) — using arrows whose thickness tells you how much is moving.

Imagine being able to see where all your flight data is going in one smooth flow instead of diving into the jungle of tables.

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✈️ Example: Flights That Make Sense (Finally)

Here’s a basic Sankey diagram showing flights from different cities:

• New Delhi → Washington

• Dubai → Los Angeles

• London → New York

Just by glancing at it, you can immediately tell:

1. 🛫 Washington accepts flights from everyone.

2. 🧳 New York is basically in a long-distance relationship with London.

3. 🌴 Los Angeles gets major Dubai vibes.

4. 🛬 New Delhi is Washington-bound, 100%.

Now try getting those insights by scanning rows and rows of tabular data.
Spoiler alert: You'll be halfway through your third coffee before you notice anything.

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🤯 Why Sankey Diagrams Are Low-Key Superheroes

Here’s why you should consider Sankey diagrams next time you’re wrangling data:

• ✅ Visuals > VLOOKUP
  Our brains love pictures. And Sankey diagrams? They’re basically data, but make it fashion.

• ✅ Quick Insights
  You can spot patterns, bottlenecks, or unexpected connections in seconds. (Yes, seconds. No caffeine required.)

• ✅ Great for Storytelling
  Whether you're showing traffic flow, user journeys, or energy usage — Sankeys bring your data to life.

"My Excel sheet crashed trying to explain this — Sankey did it in one arrow."

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🧪 How You Can Use Them

Some common (and awesome) use cases:

• Website user flows (where visitors go after the homepage)

• Customer journeys (from lead to loyalist… or ghost 👻)

• Logistics & operations (tracking goods from supplier to store)

• Budget & finance (where the money comes from and where it disappears)

“Fun fact: Every time someone uses a Sankey diagram, a data analyst gets their wings.”

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🔧 Tools to Build Sankey Diagrams

No need to draw one in MS Paint. Here are tools that make it easy:

• Plotly

• Google Charts

• Flourish

• D3.js

• RAWGraphs

Bonus: Most of them are free!

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🚀 TL;DR

Sankey diagrams take your messy tabular data and turn it into something you can actually understand (and maybe show off in meetings without sweating).

✅ Easy to interpret
✅ Visually appealing
✅ Great for storytelling
✅ Helps avoid falling asleep mid-analysis

// plot() was too basic. Enter: Sankey()

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📚 Resources

• Interactive Sankey in Plotly

• DailyDose of DS – A fun, bite-sized stream of data goodness 📊

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💬 Over to You

What are some other visual tools or tricks you use to simplify complex data?
Drop your thoughts — or your favorite Sankey pun — in the comments.

(Okay fine, here’s one: “I Sankey-ed into understanding this data.”)

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