Twitter [horrific] Graph!
I just can’t seem to help myself when it comes to sharing beauties like the pie chart below with my readers. The pie chart was found here. Yes, it’s colorful. Yes, it’s an example of pimping your chart. And finally, yes, it’s extremely ineffective. Just recreating this chart accurately was nearly impossible because of the small slices that are not even visible.
It takes entirely too long to go from legend to chart, legend to chart, legend to chart, (you get the point) to cross reference the two. A simple bar/column chart would have been a much better choice.
Here is my version that took me longer to figure out which values referenced which slice percentages than creating the actual chart.
Suggested Reading:
The Visual Display of Quantitative Information, 2nd edition
Show Me the Numbers: Designing Tables and Graphs to Enlighten
Creating More Effective Graphs
June 16th, 2008 at 7:03 am
At least the pie has the categories sorted by order of value (and the other pie in the cited post had data labels that included categories). In later posts on the cited blog, they’ve gone to bar charts, and claim to like them better. They hadn’t figured out that placing the longer bars on top made for a better graphic. I posted a comment showing them how, we’ll see how they do.
June 16th, 2008 at 11:22 am
The pie would work reasonably if they’d just taken the time to label the segments, rather than using a legend.
Aggregating the smaller catergories and just showing the top 6 (>=5%) and “Other” would also have made it easier.
June 16th, 2008 at 5:22 pm
@Jon – Sorting the graph in descending order does make for a better visual. I did look back at their site and they do include another version of the pie with values AND labels. Maybe a special post is due on “how to make horrific graphs a little less horrific.
@Dan – As Jon pointed out, they do have another version with labels instead of a legend. I think a bar chart, sorted in descending order, is much more effective than the best of pies.
I think the only time I might (slight possibility) use a pie chart is when I am only comparing two values. Even still, a column/bar chart would probably be more effective and take up less space.
More than anything, this post is just a reminder of what not to do. If you choose to use a pie chart, don’t make the same mistake and have a legend like the one above.
Thank you for your comments and feedback!
June 16th, 2008 at 5:54 pm
The pie with labels instead of a legend was a different data set.
I decided to take it easy on the blog author, since the bio said he’s 17 or so. A few friendly comments, since he’s had no exposure to anything important yet.
June 20th, 2008 at 4:13 am
Hi folks. I’m the guy behind that “totally horrible and ineffective chart”.
I will learn from my mistakes folks. So, keep pointing them out (Thanks for the comments on the Blog, Jon)
June 20th, 2008 at 10:46 am
Yuvi -
I like your enthusiasm. I was merely pointing out a few ways to make the charts easier for the reader to interpret. Keep ‘em coming.
June 20th, 2008 at 5:08 pm
Yuvi – I would like to commend you on your positive attitude! My post was not aimed at criticizing you, but at the chart layout. There were other charts on your page that were much better.
I may suggest, The Visual Display of Quantitative Information by Edward Tufte if you are serious about improving data visualizations.
Thank you for the comment!
June 20th, 2008 at 6:17 pm
I would also suggest two books by Stephen Few: Information Dashboard Design: The Effective Visual Communication of Data and Show Me the Numbers: Designing Tables and Graphs to Enlighten. Few’s books are more approachable and more practical than Tufte’s.
June 20th, 2008 at 8:20 pm
Jon – Good point.
I would also recommend the two Stephen Few books above.
November 10th, 2008 at 12:03 pm
I prefer the pie chart.
First off, it’s not intuitive from looking at the bar chart whether or not multiple responses were allowed.
Second, the way the bar chart is drawn, the 59% bar stretches across the whole area allotted for the chart. Visually, this implies something closer to 100%, not 59%. That’s never a problem with a pie chart.
November 11th, 2008 at 9:57 am
Ron -
“… it’s not intuitive from looking at the bar chart…”
Given the context of the pie chart, and the way a lot of amateur pie charts are constructed, it’s not obvious for the pie chart either. The bar chart gives the option to cleanly show either, but a notation should be required in either case. One assumes that the pie chart disallows multiple responses, but I’ve seen this rule violated.
The data label on the bar tells me the bar reaches to 59%. The chart implies 59%, but if you look at it too quickly, you may infer 100%.