On alternative pizzas, pie charts and datavis pedantry

So our usually calm data visualization corner on Twitter was shaken by this tweet: Forget pepperoni – mushroom is Britain's most liked pizza topping (65%), followed by onion (62%) and then ham (61%) https://t.co/5kYikXOEtF pic.twitter.com/AJezMfJHbk — YouGov (@YouGov) March 6, 2017 quickly followed by this one: We're very sorry for the confusion, but this is … Read more

The best of two worlds: the scatterplot pie

The best chart is always task-dependent, but let me assume that you would choose the scatterplot as the best chart and the pie as the worst. They are like water and oil: impossible to mix them! Are they? Let me tell you about a little experiment. I call it the scatterplot pie just for fun, … Read more

Anatomy of a Bad Chart

We often learn a lot more from bad examples than from the good ones. So, here is a really bad one (you can find many examples like this in corporate annual reports…). So, what’s wrong here? What do they want to say? If you don’t know what to say, you probably should keep your mouth … Read more

How to Make Better Pie Charts with On-Demand Details

This article goes much against conventional wisdom about pie charts (and doughnut charts) by answering these two simple questions: Can we use a large number of categories in pie charts? (Yes, we can.) Can we make a productive use of the apparently useless doughnut chart? (Yes, we can.) Disclaimer (Sort of…) Let me start by … Read more

Pie Charts – A Devil’s Advocate Point of View

In what seems to be a post-vacation syndrome, I am in the mood for pie charts. I see them everywhere, even in car logos. Actually, I am more in the mood to defy current “crowd wisdom” about pie chats. Search the web for “pie chart” and you’ll get more than one million results, and a … Read more

The Best Pie Charts Come From Germany

Best Pie Chart Award (clean and balanced. Your perception may not be great at comparing angles, but who cares?)   2th Place (also nice, but too many slices, and I don’t like the title around the pie)   Lateral Pie-Thinking Award (well, perhaps someone just messed up the template)   Designer’s Pie Charts Award (data? … Read more