This post is a testament that readers of this blog are way cooler and enterprising than I am. Justin, who I must say, has some really amazing excel skills, contacted me in April with a VBA Script he made that can draw two circle Venn diagrams in excel. He wrote,
I regularly need to show the intersection between different populations (venn diagrams) and have struggled to find anything useful in XL2000 or XL2003
Most examples are static pictures of circles created in a graphics program to which users add labels – hardly ideal
While still a WIP – I’ve come up with a simple 2 circle venn tool.
It uses drawing objects [msoShapeOval] (nice to get the transparency)
I saw the script and was really impressed by the way it worked. I wrote back to him asking if it is ok to share this with the readers on PHD. And he said OK. Ever since I have been wanting to share this wonderful little tool with all of you.
Without further ado…
Venn Diagrams in Excel
1. First download the Venn diagrams in excel zip file from here [xls version here].
2. Now when you try to open the file, you must enable macros (in excel 2007, you may want to set the security to low and then reopen the file)
3. Click on the big button you see in the first sheet and specify the venn diagram details (how many in each circle, what is the intersection amount)
4. Click the “Draw Venn” button and you have a sparkling venn diagram ready
Once again, I really appreciate Justin for putting together such a nice tool and sharing it will all of us. Thank you 🙂
PS: If you like this, do say thank you to Justin in comments. I am sure he can take pretty much any amount of appreciation.
14 Responses to “Group Smaller Slices in Pie Charts to Improve Readability”
I think the virtue of pie charts is precisely that they are difficult to decode. In many contexts, you have to release information but you don't want the relationship between values to jump at your reader. That's when pie charts are most useful.
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Chandoo,
millions of ants cannot be mistaken.....There should be a reason why everybody continues using Pie charts, despite what gurus like you or Jon and others say.
one reason could be because we are just used to, so that's what we need to change, the "comfort zone"...
i absolutely agree, since I've been "converted", I just find out that bar charts are clearer, and nicer to the view...
Regards,
Martin
[...] says we can Group Smaller Slices in Pie Charts to Improve Readability. Such a pie has too many labels to fit into a tight space, so you need ro move the labels around [...]
Chandoo -
You ask "Can I use an alternative to pie chart?"
I answer in You Say “Pie”, I Say “Bar”.
This visualization was created because it was easy to print before computers. In this day and age, it should not exist.
I think the 100% Bar Chart is just as useless/unreadable as Pies - we should rename them something like Mama's Strudel Charts - how big a slice would you like, Dear?
My money's with Jon on this topic.
The primary function of any pie chart with more than 2 or 3 data points is to obfuscate. But maybe that is the main purpose, as @Jerome suggests...
@Jerome.. Good point. Also sometimes, there is just no relationship at all.
@Martin... Organized religion is finding it tough to get converts even after 2000+ years of struggle. Jon, Stephen, countless others (and me) are a small army, it would take atleast 5000 more years before pie charts vanish... patience and good to have you here 🙂
@Jon .. very well done sir, very well done.
good points every one...
I've got to throw my vote into Jon's camp (which is also Stephen Few's camp) -- bars just tend to work better. One observation about when we say "what people are used to." There are two distinct groups here (depending on the situation, a person can fall in either one): the person who *creates* the chart and the person who *consumes* the chart. Granted, the consumers are "used to" pie charts. But, it's not like a bar chart is something they would struggle to understand or that would require explanation (like sparklines and bullet graphs). Chart consumers are "used to" consuming whatever is put in front of them. Chart creators, on the other hand, may be "used to" creating pie charts, but that isn't an excuse for them to continue to do so -- many people are used to driving without a seatbelt, leaving lights on in their house needlessly, and forwarding not-all-that-funny anecdotes via email. That doesn't mean the practice shouldn't be discouraged!
[...] example that Chandoo used recently is counting uses of words. Clearly, there are other meanings of “bar” (take bar mitzvah or bar none, for [...]
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Good article. Is it possible to do that with line charts?
Hi,
Is this available in excel 2013?