Pie charts can make you laugh

One of my favourite bloggers is Jessica Hagy. Each day she publishes an index card with a comical graph. Most pie charts are terrible but this one about "I'm fine." amused me.

Getting creative with Pie Charts

The Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) is a very successful organisation with an operating revenue of over $538 Million. However their success does not stop them creating strange pie charts. The following diagram is from page 35 of the ASX 2009 annual report.

The pie chart represents the number of referrals from the ASX to the Australian corporate regulator for possible breaches to trading laws or rules. The interesting innovation is the 'Total Referrals 88' which is the outer circle of the pie chart. Initially I thought this must represent the sum of the slices of the pie but the slices add up to more than 88. Then I spotted the asterisk indicating a single referral may contain more than one breach.

This pie chart should win an award for visual confusion. The total referrals number visually looks like it should equal the sum of the slices but it actually represents a very different number.

Edward Tufte and PowerPoint

Edward Tufte is famous for his books on the visual display of information. He is also well known for his dislike of PowerPoint. Check out how much Tufte hates PowerPoint by going here.

Another visual explainer

The Explanation Industry is on the rise, especially when the explanation uses compelling visuals. Check out a company called Say It Visually!. I especially liked their explanation about Skype.

Pie charts are evil

I recently spoke at Ignite Sydney on the topic 'Pie charts are evil'.

What?

I have just finished reading the 2009 Interim Report for Macquarie Airports (a publicly listed Australian company). The first two sentences of the CEO's report are:

In the first half of 2009, the proportionately consolidated proforma EBITDA of our airports fell 4.2%, outperforming the 7.2% decline in traffic. This demonstrates the value of active management.

I actually think it demonstrates an example of poor writing where incomprehensible jargon is used to validate the writer's assertions. I am astonished that a company with a market valuation of over 4.5 Billion dollars doesn't take more care with shareholder communication.

Did you know?

For years Xplane has been producing short, informative videos using interesting graphics. Below is there latest video, 'Did you know 4.0' with interesting facts about social media and communication technologies. It lasts 4 1/2 minutes.