I tend to number myself among those who revel in the use of spreadsheets and pie charts. Yes, it’s dorky – but there is no shame in being a dork, if you ask me. This article discusses the origins of the pie chart, as well as some pitfalls of its use. However, this famous graphical snapshot is not going to go anywhere soon…

William Playfair — a businessman, engineer and economics writer from Scotland — created the first known pie chart in 1801. Seeking to illustrate the Turkish Empire’s landholdings for his statistical breviary on the European nation-states, Playfair sliced a circle into three wedges whose sizes were determined by land area.

Source: NYTimes.com - A pie chart from William Playfair's "Statistical Breviary," a publication containing statistical data of European countries in 1801.

A CRITIC OF THE PIE CHART

Like many of his contemporaries, the design consultant Stephen Few bemoans the ubiquity of pie charts. Here, he explains his perspective:

You wrote an essay called “Save the Pies for Dessert.” Why do you dislike pie charts so much?
Pie charts are very popular, but it’s rare that a pie chart does the job better than a bar chart.

So, it’s fundamentally flawed?
When looking at parts of a whole, the primary task is to rank them to see the relative performance of the parts. That can’t be done easily when relying on angles formed by a slice.

How come?
Our eyes just don’t do that task well.

So why do people keep using them? I think there’s a basic appeal to the shape of a circle — a gut-level visual appeal.