Stop Using Pie-Charts
earthly.dev
Stop Using Pie-Charts
1–10 of 35 posts
Re: Stop Using Pie-Charts
#2I would say there is a place for pie charts. The article seems to have accuracy as ultimate goal, if you need that accuracy; fully agree, pie chart isn't the best visualization. But, data visualization is often about story telling, and the small percentage differences don't always matter.
For example, if you are telling a story about how one of the slices is much bigger than the other ones, pie (and donut) charts, are a very effective and visually interesting way to tell that story. The other case where I like pie charts (and I do prefer donuts btw) is when the data isn't very accurate and "hiding" some of the detail is actually a better representation of reality.
So yeah, pick the chart that works best for the situation (and if possible, give multiple options), but I do not agree with writing off the whole chart type. Radar charts are more questionable imo haha.
Data visualization is in essence trading accuracy for readability, how much you want and need depends on the goal, audience and data.
Re: Stop Using Pie-Charts
#3Yes. Yes. 1000x yes. Pie charts are bad and there is almost no justification for using them. Humans are bad at estimating area - and donut charts help fix this. I actually pretend donut charts are "curved line charts".
Also, engineers are notoriously bad at making visualizations. Sorry if this offends you. I would recommend everyone here spend some time looking at pretty visualizations and maybe reading about it
Re: Stop Using Pie-Charts
#4Yes. Yes. 1000x yes. Pie charts are bad and there is almost no justification for using them. Humans are bad at estimating area - and donut charts help fix this. I actually pretend donut charts are "curved line charts". Also, engineers are notoriously bad at making visualizations. Sorry if this offends you. I would recommend everyone here spend some time looking at pretty visualizations and maybe reading about it
Would you like to share any resources for good practices?
Re: Stop Using Pie-Charts
#5Yes. Yes. 1000x yes. Pie charts are bad and there is almost no justification for using them. Humans are bad at estimating area - and donut charts help fix this. I actually pretend donut charts are "curved line charts". Also, engineers are notoriously bad at making visualizations. Sorry if this offends you. I would recommend everyone here spend some time looking at pretty visualizations and maybe reading about it
Would you like to share any resources for good practices?
I really like Stephen Few.
Re: Stop Using Pie-Charts
#6Yes. Yes. 1000x yes. Pie charts are bad and there is almost no justification for using them. Humans are bad at estimating area - and donut charts help fix this. I actually pretend donut charts are "curved line charts". Also, engineers are notoriously bad at making visualizations. Sorry if this offends you. I would recommend everyone here spend some time looking at pretty visualizations and maybe reading about it
Would you like to share any resources for good practices?
Edward Tufte's various books like The Visual Display of Quantitative Information and Envisioning Information are old but good books.
That said, they are more of an inspiration than a practical handbook of templates to make your own visualization.
Re: Stop Using Pie-Charts
#7The 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.
Re: Stop Using Pie-Charts
#8The 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.
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Re: Stop Using Pie-Charts
#9Pie charts are useful when there are large disparities between some of the data items. Like, here are our total expenses for last year, we spent 6% on administration, 14% on facilities, 11% on R&D, 33% on manufacturing, and 36% on sales and marketing. You can see at a glance, even with human eyesight's poor judgement of areas, what the dominating two expense areas are. Or, you know, here's a breakdown of the OS our dev team members use: 85% use Windows, 11% use macOS, 3% use Linux and 1% use "other".
Oftentimes they will be labelled as well with the exact percentage numbers which helps. It's not really a scientific visualization tool, but it adds punch to a presentation when you want to show that one or more subsegments of a whole really dominate the rest.
Re: Stop Using Pie-Charts
#10I would say there is a place for pie charts. The article seems to have accuracy as ultimate goal, if you need that accuracy; fully agree, pie chart isn't the best visualization. But, data visualization is often about story telling, and the small percentage differences don't always matter. For example, if you are telling a story about how one of the slices is much bigger than the other ones, pie (and donut) charts, ar…
I’ve seen an animation a few days ago [1] about the market share evolution of smartphone constructors for 20 years. The animated pie beautifully tells the raise of Apple, Samsung, Huawey and the fall of Nokia, RIM and others. So, fully agree, pie charts can be used if you don’t need the precision.
[1] https://www.linkedin.com/posts/jameseagle_mobilephones-datav...