Comments on: 10 x 10 Tips to improve your (Excel) charts: pie charts http://www.excelcharts.com/blog/10-x-10-tips-to-improve-your-excel-charts-pie-charts/ Business Charts, Done Right Mon, 26 Jul 2010 19:52:12 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0 By: DSA Insights » Blog Archive » Donut Charts! http://www.excelcharts.com/blog/10-x-10-tips-to-improve-your-excel-charts-pie-charts/comment-page-1/#comment-349 DSA Insights » Blog Archive » Donut Charts! Mon, 21 Jul 2008 12:05:01 +0000 http://www.excelcharts.com/blog/10-x-10-tips-to-improve-your-excel-charts-pie-charts/#comment-349 [...] Jorge Camoes - Charts [...] [...] Jorge Camoes – Charts [...]

]]> By: admin http://www.excelcharts.com/blog/10-x-10-tips-to-improve-your-excel-charts-pie-charts/comment-page-1/#comment-348 admin Thu, 17 Jan 2008 14:00:27 +0000 http://www.excelcharts.com/blog/10-x-10-tips-to-improve-your-excel-charts-pie-charts/#comment-348 Sounds delicious... Once a product manager told me he thought a 3D pie chart looked more precise (I can prove he told me that!). This just shows how far we are from removing pie charts out of sight. Sounds delicious…

Once a product manager told me he thought a 3D pie chart looked more precise (I can prove he told me that!). This just shows how far we are from removing pie charts out of sight.

]]> By: Jon Peltier http://www.excelcharts.com/blog/10-x-10-tips-to-improve-your-excel-charts-pie-charts/comment-page-1/#comment-347 Jon Peltier Tue, 15 Jan 2008 12:18:45 +0000 http://www.excelcharts.com/blog/10-x-10-tips-to-improve-your-excel-charts-pie-charts/#comment-347 My faovrite pie is actually a 3D pie, with colored regions stacked vertically. It uses a chocolate cookie crust, with a chocolate pudding layer, then a layer of eggnog pudding, and is topped with an unhealthy amount of whipped cream and garnished with bittersweet chocolate shavings. ("Mmmm, pie..." - Homer Simpson) Pies do not, however, make a good vehicle for information displays. They are ubiquitous, and we are fooled by their familiarity into thinking that they really show something. A pareto (i.e., sorted column chart) is much more effective at showing comparitive proportions of a whole, particularly if the value axis is scaled to 100% of the whole. My faovrite pie is actually a 3D pie, with colored regions stacked vertically. It uses a chocolate cookie crust, with a chocolate pudding layer, then a layer of eggnog pudding, and is topped with an unhealthy amount of whipped cream and garnished with bittersweet chocolate shavings. (“Mmmm, pie…” – Homer Simpson)

Pies do not, however, make a good vehicle for information displays. They are ubiquitous, and we are fooled by their familiarity into thinking that they really show something. A pareto (i.e., sorted column chart) is much more effective at showing comparitive proportions of a whole, particularly if the value axis is scaled to 100% of the whole.

]]>