Comments on: Pie Charts – A Devil's Advocate Point of View

By: Links for September 12, 2008 | PTS Blog

Links for September 12, 2008 | PTS Blog — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 16:57:56 +0000

[...] Pie Chart. I encourage all to read it, learn from it, and apply its lessons every day. Thanks to Jorge for the [...]

By: Jon Peltier

Jon Peltier — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 14:58:13 +0000

The problem with a stacked chart is that it is as difficult to compare stacked items to each other (because they lack a shared baseline) as it is to compare segments of a pie.

By: admin

admin — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 14:05:03 +0000

I think that chart formats are not interchangeable, so if you want to see a part-of-the-whole you must use a circular chart or a stacked bar. I’ll discuss this in my next post and I’ll try to show how we can make a better use of pie charts. Stay tuned!

By: paresh shah

paresh shah — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 13:17:19 +0000

Using the same type of chart to represent a certain relationship would be boring. However Pie charts have some limitations and some strong voices against their use. What other options could be used then? – a dot plot. other options?

By: Jon Peltier

Jon Peltier — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 12:22:55 +0000

The fivethirtyeight.com pies are pretty effective for a simple "who's ahead" comparison of two values (okay, three, counting undecided).

By: admin

admin — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 07:15:25 +0000

@Jon: Yes, I saw that nice pie too. Let’s see if there are better examples of pie charts with more than five slices.
@Robert: What I want to say is that there is a place for pie charts as an information visualization tool (the devil’s advocate comes in because that’s not the official (Tufte’s) dogma).
@Scott: I’ll do my best to find a case…

By: Jon Peltier

Jon Peltier — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 03:26:10 +0000

Robert – I presume Jorge will show us “acceptable” uses for pie charts, besides for marketing automobiles.

By: Robert Kosara

Robert Kosara — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 03:02:27 +0000

I don’t quite see where the devil comes in, you have only shown that pie charts are in wide use and that some people like them and some don’t. But I’m looking forward to more posts in this series, this should be interesting.

By: Scott

Scott — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 03:02:19 +0000

I fall fairly heavily in the no pie chart camp.

One instance where they are ok in my opinion would be the pie charts on the left of the website fivethirtyeight.com

They still have the typical downsides of needing the numbers next to the pie chart if you want to get a fairly accurate estimate of the exact amount in each category and I think the information is better displayed if you used a bar chart instead. But the point of these charts is more of a “who is ahead?” and “is it close?” than wanting to know if the exact number is 270 or 272 etc.

From a “it is prettier” perspective or “it fits in the corner of my annual corporate report nicely”, or “I just want variety in my charts” then one can argue for pie charts at times, but for best display/utility of the information I have yet to see a pie chart out perform other options.

So what I would like to see (from anyone) is a case where a pie chart can be argued to display the information better than another choice.

By: Jon Peltier

Jon Peltier — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 02:11:40 +0000

Use as many categories as you want, plus a 3-D vantage:
Some stats stuff (picture with pie chart + extra per-time stats).

(I’m just spitting back one of the more creative examples from your web search of “pie chart”.)