Which chart or graph is right for you?
Episode 4: Pies
Pies can be very colorful, but they should
only be used for a limited set of purposes.
We'll see why as we use pies in Tableau to
see how our different product types are selling.
Let’s get started looking at an appropriate
use of pies.
We’ll see how our sales break down across
3 different categories by dragging and dropping.
We can add a label that shows the total sales
or the percent of the total.
There are two situations where pies are commonly
used, but bar charts are a better choice.
First, if we have many pieces in our pie.
Can you tell which subcategory is biggest
and which is smallest?
Our eyes aren’t that good at judging which
pieces of the pie are bigger or smaller when
there are more than 6 pie pieces.
It’s much easier to compare the values in
a bar chart, especially if we sort the values.
Now it’s clear that Office Machines are
biggest and Rubber Bands are smallest.
The second situation where a bar chart is
a better choice than a pie is when there are
2 pies that we want to compare.
Can you tell which Region had the most Technology
Sales?
With a bar chart, it's easy to seee that the
Central Region had the most Technology sales.
If you want to see how your data compares,
download a free trial of tableau software
at www.tableausoftware.com/trial.
