"But if you still must use pie charts, I beg you not to use 3D pie charts. Please, they are simply an abomination. Making them 3D just makes them even harder to interpret."
I agree! I never understood why a pie chart (with the principal value of showing the relative size of each chunk compared to the others) would be rotated and distorted in such a way to make the relative sizes indiscernible.
Pie charts have such limited value... I wonder if part of the reason they became so popular was how simple it is to draw one - if you have a protractor, pencil, and a calculator, it is a very quick process. When you are no longer limited by drawing time, though, there seems to be very little worthwhile in the design. I wish they never made the transition to the computing age...
I agree! I never understood why a pie chart (with the principal value of showing the relative size of each chunk compared to the others) would be rotated and distorted in such a way to make the relative sizes indiscernible.
Pie charts have such limited value... I wonder if part of the reason they became so popular was how simple it is to draw one - if you have a protractor, pencil, and a calculator, it is a very quick process. When you are no longer limited by drawing time, though, there seems to be very little worthwhile in the design. I wish they never made the transition to the computing age...