5 Unusual Alternatives to Pie Charts
Before you cook up another pie, consider these alternatives
Every time I see a 3D pie chart made in Excel, I die a little on the inside.
When working in data visualization, you hear all sorts of opinions on pie charts. Some people feel they should never be used. Mathematician John Tukey felt there was no pie-chart data that couldn’t be better displayed in any other type of chart. Other people really like them.
Unlike Tukey and design theorist Edward Tufte—who said, “The only worse design than a pie chart is several of them”—I am not of the opinion that pie charts should never be used. I just think they should be used less often.
I have sensed similar feelings toward Excel spreadsheets. They have even earned the nickname “walls of data.” The connection here is that pie charts and Excel spreadsheets are both overused and stretched to do things they were not meant to do. However, just like you wouldn’t remove colors from the painter’s palette and say, “No more green for you!” I don’t think the solution is to delete Excel and pie charts off everyone’s computer. Perhaps it’s more about making sure the…
