Delightful Figures in Python Series: Donut Plot

I wanted to put together a series to guide Python-ers through generating delightful figures. Delightful figures can help you effectively tell your story, add credibility to your data analysis, and give your papers/articles/blogs a pop of fun.

We are going to start with one of my personal favorites- the donut plot! (And it is not just my favorite because it is also a delicious breakfast). While the pie chart has been through the ringer of bad press (due to our brain having a hard time comparing sizes of angles), the donut plot has emerged as an excellent alternative. I highly recommend this blog, which compares donut and pie charts.

Getting Started

Some basic assumptions before we get started: I am assuming you have, at minimum, a basic understanding of python and you have a working knowledge of pandas and matplotlib.

The dataset

This tutorial is BYODS (Bring your own data set), but if you want to follow along with the dataset I am using, I am using the Kaggle UFO sightings dataset, freely available here.

Make sure you have imported pandas, and matplotlib before starting: