Another reminder: most pie charts are unreadable

I'm outsourcing today's post to reader Joel D., who describes himself as a geographer, professional researcher and son of a graphics designer. He wrote a wonderful entry about the following pie chart:

 You know this "big graphic" is in big trouble when the caption tells you only 4 clubs made a profit and yet you'd be hard pressed to locate those 4 clubs from the chart itself!

The other telling sign is using blocks to represent profit/loss. This never works whether the blocks are pie sectors or stacked bars. Line charts are much better.

Joel has much more commentary, and an improved chart here.  Enjoy!

Comments

[Richard]

I'm with you - I can't make head nor tail of this one! Papers are too keen on the eye candy.

Been lurking for a while - thanks for the great content.

[Andy Kriebel]

The way Arsenal played this year, just having Song's picture on the article makes it unreadable.

[Jersey]

This is a brilliant post, im really glad I found it thank you very much.