Today’s post continues from yesterday’s post entitled, Effectiveness of Chart Design: See for Yourself.

Let me tell you the back story. I was flying from Maryland to Florida on AirTran. I always like to browse the in-flight magazine. On page 14 of August 2009’s Go Magazine was the article pictured below, The Big Apple Pie Chart. It caught my eye, and it gave me something to think about for a good portion of the short flight.

Yesterday, there was discussion regarding how ineffective pie charts are for communicating data. This visual shows that it is possible to even do a bad job constructing the chart.

First off, do you get it? Pie Chart — Pies — The Big Apple — Apple Pie — The Big Apple Pie Chart. When you have finished laughing, please continue with me. Grin, I bet you did get it. Sigh . . .

The pies look delicious, and I bet you they taste even better. The titling on the graphic is: “A Day in New York City: The Big Apple Pie Chart”

Make the best of a day in Manhattan. While you’re exploring, be sure to stop for a slice of the city’s namesake pie.

Around the pie are percentages, but I defy you to figure out to what they relate. There is no indication anywhere for what the numbers mean.

Obviously, the graph is simply being used for artistic purposes. I don’t think there is any quantitative meaning to extract. Although, it would have been interesting if this was the survey results ranking the best apple pies in New York. Maybe it is, who knows?

That said, as difficult as it was yesterday to decipher the data in the visuals, the additional distracting details around the pie make it harder. You basically need to circle the pie with your eyes, collect the numbers and rank/sort them before being able to draw conclusions.

Like the data I presented yesterday, the percentages are not sorted greatest to smallest, which would have made interpretation easier. The pie chart, in the end, is just eye candy, which was probably as it was intended.

It did make me think that when you have no quantitative data to convey and the numbers are not important, the pie chart is the perfect vehicle for displaying it. If their purpose was to get me to spend time with their graphic, they succeeded. I have now spent a few hours with it, and I really want to go to one of the bakeries listed. Has anyone been to one of them?

Comments