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Stop Using Pie-Charts

earthly.dev

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Re: Stop Using Pie-Charts

#31

Post by tgv »

citizenpaul wrote: post #18

Pie charts are good for two things. Showing how domanant one factor is. Showing how no factor is dominant.

When used to visualize relative importance, it has the great advantage of an implied, absolute scale: you can see what's 50% without having to guess from the axis what the value is. You can even eyeball a majority, as in chart [1], although the colors of two adjacent parties happen to be very similar to my vision. You would not be able to do that with a bar chart such as [2]. The pie chart should not be your go-to chart, but it has its place.

[1] https://www.ft.com/__origami/service/image/v2/images/raw/htt...

[2] https://blogs.ft.com/the-world/files/2017/09/bar-chart.png

Re: Stop Using Pie-Charts

#32

Post by codeptualize »

titzer wrote: post #22
codeptualize wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have to disagree, animation is again a storytelling tool. Instead of a flat presentation of data now you actually have a story with a beginning middle and end, it's much more engaging than a flat line chart. Take the animated bar charts that where sort of a trend for a while on Twitter and Reddit, they got popular for a reason; they are interesting to look at. These types of charts, if done well, make you curious w…

If it's interactive with a slider, maybe (most people don't scrub the video). Human memory is bad, like really bad. You wouldn't make a bar chart and put some bars on one page and some bars on another page. Animated charts are like that. They're entertainment, not a tool for seriously comparing data.

The point I'm making is that absolute statements about these things are incorrect. When used appropriately these tools can add to your visualization and story.

Let me give some examples of animation used in data visualization that really contributes to the story:

https://drones.pitchinteractive.com/

https://guns.periscopic.com/

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2017/dec/...

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/08/29/opinion/clima...

I think it's hard to argue these are "entertainment", they all tell important stories using data and animation. In these examples animation adds to the story, making it more engaging, and drawing more attention to the issue than it otherwise would have gotten. It can evoke surprise, shock, emotion that could not be achieved otherwise.

It's a bit like: people often use text in very bad ways. To mislead, too much or too little information, large quantities that say nothing at all, unreadable styles, lack of structure etc etc. Does that mean text is bad and you stop writing text? Of course not.

Re: Stop Using Pie-Charts

#33

Post by edflsafoiewq »

Spooky23 wrote: post #7

The first example undermines the argument. It’s a demonstration that the author doesn’t understand a tool. That pie chart tells me that the slices are approximately the same, which is a useful message to effectively deliver visually. Pie charts are great for understanding relative value. Divining or comparing the precise values is not a good use for it.

So does the second. It shows you almost immediately that about half the precipitation falls on the weekend, validating the claim, which is not at all clear from the bar chart.

Re: Stop Using Pie-Charts

#34

Post by marginalia_nu »

The author says the problem is that we have a hard time estimating areas. That is hard, but the problem isn't estimating the area. What you is segments of a circle's circumference. You can unroll a piechart into something like this, and it's still kind of difficult to figure out the proportions:

|----------|--------|---------------------|--|-----------|

Re: Stop Using Pie-Charts

#35

Post by BeetleB »

pattusk wrote: post #26
BeetleB wrote: post #25

As someone who has fought this battle many times: People don't want accuracy. People don't want details. People want pretty. They will reject any other type of plot that is better than pie charts on the other two metrics. Hence, pie chart. The higher up you go, the more important the appearance is, and the less important the details are. The role of most presentations is not to get people to understand, but to impres…

Is it just me or does TFA's whole argument rests upon the assumption that you don't add labels to your pie charts ? If I add percentages or values to the chart, there are no issues with either interpretation or comprehension. The pie chart is just a visually pleasant way to display data compared to, say, a table or a bar chart. Data that's displayed in a boring is quickly forgotten, but data presented in a striking w…

Again, it's a question of whether you are trying to convey details, or look pretty.

If you add numbers to the pie chart, then you don't need the chart at all. The benefit of a bar chart is that you don't need to list the individual percentages. At a quick glance, you can get more information from a bar chart than you can from a pie chart.

But if you're not trying to convey details, a pie chart is prettier.

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