Phil over at Vincenze’s pit points out the potential pitfalls of pie charts. His conclusion:

So the next time you’re preparing a presentation, stop and ask yourself; what message am I sending my viewers when I use a pie chart? Ultimately, the one thing you can be certain of is that it won’t be a clear one.

Check out his post for a really clear example of why they’re problematic.

Garr Reynolds looks at some alternative ways to present data, including a brief discussion on the pros and cons of pie charts, when reviewing a presentation by Whole Foods Market’s CEO, John Mackey.

While we’re on the topic of data visualisation (incl. charting), I’ve come across a few related links recently:

• Tufte charts in Excel
• Excel “in cell” graphing - a clever method of visualising data on a cell-by-cell basis (check out the screenshots in the article to see what I’m trying to say…)

And lastly - Seth Godin has had a thing about bad PowerPoint for a while. Now he has found some research to back it up.

Update: Oh - I forgot this one: Periodic Table of Visualisation Methods.