When should we use Pie Charts?
Pie charts are a circular statistical graphic divided into slices to illustrate numerical proportion. Pie charts are a popular choice for comparative analysis.
Applicability:
A pie chart represents numbers in percentages, and the total sum of all segments equals 100%. Pie charts are most effective when you need to compare a few categories that make up a whole.
They are particularly useful for emphasizing each category's proportion or contribution to the total, such as market share, segment distribution, or budget allocations.
Use cases:
- Example 1: An online marketplace might use a pie chart to show the proportion of total sales generated from different product categories, helping identify which categories are most popular or profitable.
- Example 2: A digital marketing team may use a pie chart to display the breakdown of traffic sources to their website, such as the percentage coming from social media, search engines, direct visits, and referrals.
Limitations:
While pie charts are visually appealing and straightforward for showing composition, they have limitations.
They are less effective when dealing with many categories or when the differences between slices are minimal. In such cases, the slices can become hard to differentiate and may not effectively communicate the data.
They are also not suitable for showing changes over time or relationships between more than one set of data.