Percentages can be absolutely brilliant. They can remove a ton of distractions and questions and give you a strong indication of some numbers. For example, it is handy to know that 30% of your visitors are browsing using Internet Explorer and 4% are using Opera. This is probably easier to grasp as a percentage rather […]
Category: Pie Charts
Categories
Response to Pie Chart Comment
I received a message from Kester Takayama, which was a well written note in defence of the pie chart. Kester correctly notes that adding the third-place party to the first-place or second-place party doesn’t in itself create a government because they still may not have an overall majority. He also correctly pointed out that while […]
Before we get started I just wanted to confirm that I do not go out in search of bad charts on The Web. In all the cases where I highlight the problems of a given chart, they have come to me as part of daily life. Because of this, they sometimes appear on a website […]
Categories
Even Worse than a Pie Chart
How long has it been since I last spotted a rubbish pie chart. Okay, I admit it – it was last month. It is actually quite easy to spot them because actually all pie charts are awful. So why is this one so bad? Simple. A two-dimensional pie chart has been proven to be hard […]
Categories
Column Charts Can Lie Too
My views on pie charts are well known, but that isn’t to say that all other charts are good. The problem with pie charts is that they make it hard to understand information, but with many other charts, the problem is how people use sneaky tricks to deceive you. Whether it is a strange use […]
Categories
British Pie Week
From 5th to 11th March 2012, it’s British Pie Week. While I am a keen supporter of British Pies, especially the Apply Pie my Wife makes, this week serves as a timely reminder on how data is the worst ingredient for a pie. On the same day that British Pie Week launched, I happened upon […]
It seems to me that the tide is now turning against the pie chart. Most of the discussions I discover these days are via track-backs to my website where someone has cited one of my opinion pieces in a discussion about how pie charts are pretty much always the wrong way to display your data. […]
If you are going to use a pie chart (please don’t use a pie chart) then you need to know the rules of the pie chart. I actually don’t think anyone ever needs to use a pie chart, they are very nearly always the wrong chart for the data you want to display and despite […]
Categories
The Latest Shameful Pie Chart
The latest in what is threatening to become a series of insidious examples of pie charts in a real special pie chart. This one was spotted by Mr R Lambert of Winchester. Even if you were a fan of pie charts you would have to admit that there are massive problems here. For starters, those […]
You will probably be well aware by now that I think that pie charts are the worst way to display your data. As well as that article, I have occasionally found the need to talk about how much I dislike pie charts – and this is just such an occasion. Today, I have an example […]