5 ms·

For the statisticians and data scientists in the room : do pie charts ever have a valid use case (as defined by being superior to another form of visualization)

by doktrin 13y ago

For the statisticians and data scientists in the room : do pie charts ever have a valid use case (as defined by being superior to another form of visualization)?

srv02 13y ago
Of course. Pie charts look natural and easy to comprehend when visualizing things like market share of certain products, for example browser market share (http://www.netmarketshare.com/browser-market-share.aspx?qprid=2&qpcustomd=0 http://www.netmarketshare.com/browser-market-share.aspx?qpri...). In fact I'd argue that that's a much better representation than a bar chart, like http://www.w3counter.com/globalstats.php http://www.w3counter.com/globalstats.php, because the former makes it easier to comprehend roughly what proportion of the total market each browser represents, which is not as straightforward to see in a bar chart (in bar chart it's only easy to see how different browser market shares compare to each other). So yes, pie charts may be appropriate at times, although I agree that it's a poor choice in this particular case, as the root comment explains.
- bodhi 13y ago
  How about a stacked single-bar chart? I'd suggest that it has all of the benefits of a pie chart without introducing perception issues of angles and areas. Well, I guess you could make a fat bar and still run into problems... Ah, visualisation!
spodek 13y ago
This pie chart -- http://www.youthblog.org/pie%20chart2.jpg http://www.youthblog.org/pie%20chart2.jpg -- is accurate and presents the data better than any alternative. (so no one has to click blindly, it's a photo of a pie showing how much of it was eaten or not)
redthrowaway 13y ago
Whenever the data to be displayed is most easily conceived of as a proportion of a whole. If all of your data points added together equals the population you're sampling, then a pie chart might be appropriate.

5 ms·

For the statisticians and data scientists in the room : do pie charts ever have a valid use case (as defined by being superior to another form of visualization)

by doktrin 13y ago

For the statisticians and data scientists in the room : do pie charts ever have a valid use case (as defined by being superior to another form of visualization)?

srv02 13y ago
Of course. Pie charts look natural and easy to comprehend when visualizing things like market share of certain products, for example browser market share (http://www.netmarketshare.com/browser-market-share.aspx?qprid=2&qpcustomd=0 http://www.netmarketshare.com/browser-market-share.aspx?qpri...). In fact I'd argue that that's a much better representation than a bar chart, like http://www.w3counter.com/globalstats.php http://www.w3counter.com/globalstats.php, because the former makes it easier to comprehend roughly what proportion of the total market each browser represents, which is not as straightforward to see in a bar chart (in bar chart it's only easy to see how different browser market shares compare to each other). So yes, pie charts may be appropriate at times, although I agree that it's a poor choice in this particular case, as the root comment explains.
- bodhi 13y ago
  How about a stacked single-bar chart? I'd suggest that it has all of the benefits of a pie chart without introducing perception issues of angles and areas. Well, I guess you could make a fat bar and still run into problems... Ah, visualisation!
spodek 13y ago
This pie chart -- http://www.youthblog.org/pie%20chart2.jpg http://www.youthblog.org/pie%20chart2.jpg -- is accurate and presents the data better than any alternative. (so no one has to click blindly, it's a photo of a pie showing how much of it was eaten or not)
redthrowaway 13y ago
Whenever the data to be displayed is most easily conceived of as a proportion of a whole. If all of your data points added together equals the population you're sampling, then a pie chart might be appropriate.