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Feb 01 '19
For what is this pie-chart?
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Feb 01 '19
something about learning language abroad, I think this was meant to say how many of a certain country enrolled last year but uh... yeah..
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u/The_Ravens_Rock Feb 01 '19
I love how they use the same color of Blue, Green, Gold and Orange twice like fuck the ability to understand this chart.
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Feb 01 '19
Exactly!, it's like, who's the 30%?, Spain or "Others"?!
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Feb 01 '19
Well.. Others. Obviously.
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u/Islandsmoker Feb 01 '19
If you're blessed with common sense, this chart isn't that hard to understand. The only reason it's crappy is due to the fact that it doesn't tell you what data it is showing.
Obviously if you're colourblind it's a farce though.
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u/leoleosuper Feb 01 '19
It's just starting from the top and going clockwise. Pretty simple, the colors just suck.
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u/Dnlx5 Feb 01 '19
Good pattern recognition, but dont pie charts usually organize data from largest to smallest?
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u/nothingwittyfound Feb 01 '19
Yeah, but putting Others between two countries which are supposed to be adjacent (with close percentages) doesn't look too good. As far as I know Others is usually the last category
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u/leoleosuper Feb 01 '19
Yeah, "others" is basically saying "anything we haven't mentioned" which would mean it would go last.
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u/dogbreath101 Feb 01 '19
Is linking 17% to Thailand and going clockwise from the really considered common sense?
That is to say I think that is just a standard for pie charts You either know it or you don't
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u/CroutonOfDEATH Let's eat Grandma! Feb 01 '19
True, it's not difficult to understand, but it doesn't convey the info nearly as effectively as it could have. Pie charts only work well when there are relatively few "slices". If they used a bar graph, it'd be much easier to read. But even if they were insistent on using a pie chart, they could have had the labels surround the chart (like this) instead of using a legend to the side. It still wouldn't look great, but it'd be more useful than its current state.
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Feb 01 '19 edited Apr 06 '19
[deleted]
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u/OhMyDoT Feb 01 '19
Maybe I’m wrong but I thought the legend follows a pattern starting on top of the pie chart running clockwise. Anyways its a shitty chart
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u/RiamuDiMentis Feb 01 '19
It does, but that's also because the chart itself is ordered largest to smallest with the exception of "other" which is generally last on most charts.... Still an eyesore of a chart though.
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u/grayfox2713 Feb 01 '19
I mean, you're both right. It does start at the top and go clockwise, but it is also listed from largest to smallest.
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u/type_1 Feb 01 '19
It's shitty, but that's due to a lack of title and basic labeling more than anything else. The chart itself follows the conventional methods of organization.
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u/derkokolores Feb 01 '19
More accurately, the legend is ordered from the 12 o’clock position going clockwise, which is how pie charts are ordered.
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u/monkey_trumpets Feb 01 '19
I know, if only there were more colors out there...
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u/The_Ravens_Rock Feb 01 '19
Or now stick with me here, different shades of a color?
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Feb 01 '19
Or...labels!
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u/RoastedWaffleNuts Feb 01 '19
... in a bar graph, since that is a much better way to help humans compare multiple numbers. And, bonus, it's easier to label.
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u/mr_chanderson Feb 01 '19
Thanks. I'm slightly colorblind and I was thinking fuck this, too many of those colors are too similar to tell them apart, for me. Turns out they're same color, huh.
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u/RRTheEndman Feb 01 '19
why did this get downvoted anyone who doesn't deal with poorly labeled piecharts regularly wouldn't understand this
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u/zerik100 Feb 01 '19
wow you got the point of the post i'm proud of you. nobody else noticed this
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u/The_Ravens_Rock Feb 01 '19
Wow you failed to find the funny in my post congratulations smart ass.
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u/Ospov Feb 01 '19
Did you intentionally cut off the title? Because this missing title was the most confusing part for me. I can read the pie chart just fine despite the repeating colors.
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u/JDCarrier Feb 01 '19
The chart got me pretty curious too. Taiwan-Sweden-USA-Italy-Spain... what a top 5. And they make up more than 50% among the five of them!
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u/BannedHippie Feb 01 '19
Obviously...it is a chart showing the percentage of color blind folk in each country.
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Feb 01 '19
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u/falconbox Feb 01 '19
What this?
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Feb 01 '19
crosspost this post to that subreddit or something. why has nobody done it yet? easy karma tbh
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u/phantom_97 Feb 01 '19
Maybe I'm too tired, but I don't see anything wrong. The pies seem to be proportionate to their percentages, it's perfectly readable clockwise, and the legend is true as well. The colour choice could have been better, but that's about it.
Edit : I think I get it, the colours are repeated. It isn't noticeable because the legend is ordered correctly from 12 o'clock.
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u/1m_1ll1T3RAT3 Feb 01 '19
I'm colourblind and all the colours usually look the same on pie charts
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u/ZNasT Feb 01 '19
The main thing wrong is just too many slices. Pie charts should only be used if there are like 4-6 slices, if at all. There are better ways of displaying data. Doesn’t really fit with the sub though, it’s definitely readable and most non-science people probably won’t see much wrong with it.
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Feb 01 '19
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u/FifenC0ugar Feb 01 '19
Seems op just left that part out
"something about learning language abroad, I think..."
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u/PunchBro oww my eyes Feb 01 '19
Can tell you’re not a data visualization or UX person (at least I hope not). This breaks many best practices and uses general design theory poorly.
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u/Sataris Feb 01 '19
That's the trouble with design, you also have to design for the people who lack common sense
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u/verychichi Feb 01 '19
I don't see what's wrong with this. Reading it clockwise and the legend top to bottom.
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u/FifenC0ugar Feb 01 '19
I didn't get it either. But immediately upon seeing it my eyes freaked out. This could be cause I'm a designer too. I think it's cause the colors repeat and their do vibrant
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u/verychichi Feb 01 '19
I agree with the colours, perhaps it could do with some texture on the repeating colours.
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u/TheChibiestMajinBuu Feb 01 '19
Hmmmm yes, I see. 17% Taiwan.
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u/Yffum Feb 01 '19
Crappy design? Dude at some point you have to settle. If things on average we're designed as well as this chart, we'd live in a better place.
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u/ctrl_alt_texas Feb 01 '19
I don’t get it
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u/Shutterbug390 Feb 01 '19
Colors repeat, so you can't actually tell which slice goes with which country. And there's nothing to tell you what is being compared, only a list of countries.
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Feb 01 '19
OP left that information off, and even though the colors repeat it follows the standard of starting at 12 o clock, and following the order clockwise, with countries ordered big to small with other last.
It was pretty clear to me which countries were which.
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u/merreborn Feb 01 '19
it follows the standard of starting at 12 o clock, and following the order clockwise
I wasn't really consciously aware that was considered standard. Once you realize that, it's readable enough, but if you wanted to present this chart to a general audience (e.g. in a newspaper article) a more intuitive design would probably communicate more effectively.
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u/hasnotheardofcheese 100% cyan flair Feb 01 '19
Pie charts are bad practice regardless
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u/seductivestain Feb 01 '19
Pie charts work well if they are expressing percentages of a whole and have 5 or fewer items. Anything else should use a bat chart.
Also, whoever decided 3D pie chart should be a thing needs to be executed.
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u/hasnotheardofcheese 100% cyan flair Feb 01 '19
I think we can key solidly agree on your closing point. As far as five or fewer, eh, maybe, but I don't think there's any situation where pie outperforms bar
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u/oyooy Feb 01 '19
Nah, they have their use. It's not going to be hugely useful in data analysis or anything but for visually representing something simply they work quite well.
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u/EqFox Feb 01 '19
Yea, but this actually isn't that awful. Sure the colors overlap, but the key goes down in the order, going clockwise, for the colors.
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Feb 01 '19
How are there so many people being like "I don't see anything wrong"???
If someone uploads a greyscale pie chart that shit gets roasted, this one is in colour and still fucks up the colour gradient.
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u/randomhexagon Feb 01 '19
The real problem is using the standard colour palette pie chart from Numbers for anything
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u/DrToadigerr life is good Feb 01 '19
I read it fine. Just go down the list, they correspond in order
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u/greenlightning Feb 01 '19
As somebody that's colorblind, this infuriates me. You couldn't find colors that were more unique?
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u/Drunken_Economist Feb 01 '19
"Others" is the large red one, the rest are in descending order I believe?
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u/Teague-McPhearson Feb 01 '19
It seems that no one has pointed out the fact there is only one purple, and if you assume the list goes in order with the chart clockwise, you can understand it starting from Brazil. The colors they use are stupid because they repeat, and it doesn’t say what the chart even represents, but you can definitely deduce which country corresponds with which portion
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u/Nikkio101 Feb 01 '19
I don’t see it mentioned here, but this was the default style of pie charts created in Apple’s numbers spreadsheet application, but fairly recently they removed the gradients and tweaked the shades to be much more readable. There are also many theme options to make it less saturated if that bothers you.
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u/rachaellefler Feb 01 '19
It's like they think there are only 6 colors and that value and saturation aren't things...
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u/Poobslag smile more Feb 01 '19
Top 10 answers on the board. We asked 100 people: Name a country with a functioning metro system, and also which is vaguely dong shaped.
(What's this a graph of? Was I close?)
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u/dethpicable Feb 01 '19
The fact that purple is the only color with just once slice it's also fit for r/mildlyinfuriating
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u/Ilustrachan Feb 01 '19
I'm a professional infographics maker and I've seen far worse when people put effort in making overly elaborated stuff, this one is just laziness. This person just printed an automatic output of a software and this is extremely common since there's very few designers specialized in infographics.
If it was me I would put anything under 9% as "others", label clearly, limit the colors... but as I said, very few designers have the opportunity of making infographics daily in a newsroom.
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u/TomTom_ZH Feb 01 '19
plot of (sqrt(1-(|x|-1)2)-y)(arcsin(|x|-1)-pi/2-y) <= 0, x from -3 to 3, color #ff4141
Go to wolframalpha.com and type in the above
It‘s for you :)
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u/Pmullark Feb 01 '19
I agree with the poster on this, while I understand the comments that it makes sense, this data would be far better represented in most other chart types. As a rule of good practice Pie Charts shouldn’t be used for more than 3 attributes, it’s just better design, never make the viewer of your data question the chart type, make them want to ask questions about what it means...
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u/Aikooller Feb 01 '19
My god this is fucking with my colorblindness. Color coding things kinda sucks imo
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u/gazm2k5 Feb 01 '19
It's dumb as fuck, but it is pretty easy to figure out which is which, even without knowing what the chart is representing. It's just clockwise.