A Real World Example of How Pie Charts Communicate Poorly

A speaker projected a pie chart, like the one above, on a big screen. The story is in-teresting and compelling, but......the pie hides the key point - the presenter's social media programs successfully re-placed lower converting search visitors with higher converting social media visitors.Plus the pie chart fails the "squint test" because the audience can't read the graph, especially from the back of the room.And, showing two pies next to each other masks the year to year change, which is what reveals social media traffic grewat the expense of search traffic.Instead, the line graph shows the difference over time, and reveals the success of the presenter's Social Media programs.Produced with Tableau

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2011 201210%

30%

5%5%

40%

4%Before = Pie Chart

Traffic SourceSocial MediaSearchPPC

2011 20120%5%10%15%20%25%30%35%40%

Pct of Total T

raffic

Search

Social Media

After = Better = Same Data in Line Graph