Why do I not use Pie or Donut Charts?
Based on my personal thoughts
Pie chart is one of the most common charts seen in a visualization. The first time I came across this is a long time back as a kid while using Powerpoint.
So yeah, it’s been around for a long time. Probably the same as bar charts.
When should you use this chart? Both Charts are best to use when you are trying to compare parts of a whole.
The difference between pie and donut comes in with how it is read. With pie, you compare the arc length of each slice. Whereas with the donut, you would see the length of the piece.
Talking about these charts is making me hungry 😅
Anyways, take a look at my viz showing how each of the charts works.
When I started working on visualization as my day job, I started using pie charts initially but would always end up replacing them later.
Why? It’s too distracting to me!
Looking at this pie chart makes me wonder if these many colors are really needed. Fine, I can see the big chunk of the pie for Standard Class but how easy is it to compare First Class with Second Class? If you took a look at the label, then I guess the issue is pretty clear.
Now let’s do the same using a bar chart. Clearly Second Class has more sales than using First Class Ship Mode. And most importantly this was answered without looking at the label (which I have hidden intentionally).
So does that mean no Pie or Donut Chart at all?
Nah, I wouldn’t go that far. I mean it has a use case for me when I’m just showing two values for a dimension.
Having the item be focused in a dark color with Others in a lighter shade of grey helps me focus on the Same Day easily.
Or maybe as Donut showing the Percentage of Sales using Same Day shipping
As much as I like these, I still tend to avoid them since they feel a bit redundant to me.
What is my replacement?
My number one choice is a bar chart showing the measures by the dimension value.
If I want to focus on something in particular, just go with a BAN showing the number you want to focus on. For example, taking the above case
Or if I want to highlight the percentage in some way, I would prefer a stack bar chart. They look quite trendy to show the percentage of total and also take a lot less space 😄
Like I said in my previous post, bar charts can probably work in most cases.
A quick handy guide that I created in Tableau to show some alternatives to pie/donut charts: Alternatives to a Pie or Donut Chart
Take a look at the use cases shared by #DataFam to use a pie/donut chart.
https://twitter.com/priyankadobhal_/status/1405138651701338114?s=20
What are your thoughts on Pie and Donut Charts? Share with me in the comments sections.
Thanks for the read.
