Pie Chart – Data Visualization for BusinessesEssay Preview: Pie Chart – Data Visualization for BusinessesReport this essayPie ChartData Visualization for BusinessesA picture is worth a thousand words. The ability to graphically represent your business data gives you the power to make informed business decisions quickly. (Microsoft.com, 2002) This representation must be visually appealing and easy to understand. By keeping it simple, it allows the broadest number of users to interpret the data, gain insights as to its meaning and facilitate communication on the data ultimately to solve the companyÐŽ¦s problem. Data visualization is the use of interactive, sensory representations, typically visual, of abstract data to reinforce cognition. (Wikipedia.org, 2005) That in itself is a method or technique of decision-making. To further break it down, the most popular and widely used tool of data visualization is the Pie Chart.
There are two types of pie charts. The first type is your standard Pie Chart and the second is the Exploded Pie Chart. The standard pie chart shows parts and their relationship to the whole. Pie charts are always based on a circle, since the circle provides a true visual concept of the whole hundred percent. The parts or ÐŽ§piesÐŽÐ of the chart represent percentages of the whole. The Exploded Pie Chart is nearly identical to the standard with the exception that one ÐŽ§pieÐŽÐ is visually separated from the rest for emphasis. Pie charts are created with the help of a compass, protractor, circle stencil, can or jar and a ruler for drawing in the segmented pies. A pie chart should always be drawn in order from the largest to the smallest pie in a clockwise fashion. The pies have percentages and data labels above them; then you do not have to keep checking the legend to interpret the graph. In Figure 1 is the method used to create a pie chart and an example of one complete.
Figure 1Problem: A pizza parlor owner polled their patrons on what music they would like to listen to while waiting in line and eating in his establishment. He would like to have the radio playing and needs to know what music genre would be conducive to sales and preferred by his patrons. Here are his findings.
Sample size: 100 customersRap: 50 Alternative: 25 Rock and Roll: 13 Country: 10 Classical: 250 „i 100 like Rap = 50%Then for drawing a proportionate pie chart:Percent „i 100 x 360 degrees = the # of degrees**Circle = 360„aÐŽK Therefore Rap will occupy 180„a of the circle1. Draw a circle with your protractor or stencil2. Starting from the 12 oÐŽ¦clock position on the circle, measure an angle of 180 degrees with your protractor. The rap pie should make up half the circle. Mark off the radius with the ruler.
3. Repeat that process with each remaining pie and drawing in their radius according to their percentage of 360 degrees.The pie chart in Figure 1 quickly tells you that the majority of the patrons like rap best, and the remaining students prefer alternative, then rock and roll, then country and ending with classical music. Simply and quickly we are able to see that the majority of the restaurantsÐŽ¦ patrons prefer rap music. Pie charts work well when the values of the percentages of the whole differ greatly from each other. In other words, you do not want your pie values to be within one or two digits from each other, which would be indistinguishable on the chart to the naked eye. Another moniker for pie charts is: do not use a pie chart when there are more than six parts to the whole. Having too many values for comparison on the
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Do not use a pie chart to calculate the value of your meal. Rather, determine the average amount of space and food, and make such calculations as to ensure that the average size is at the lowest for each individual. This shall help you understand the different parts and ratios of the ingredients. In addition, the pie charts on the market have to be accurate and clearly displayed. If there are two numbers at the end of the chart, their importance should be shown by clearly separating the upper two from the lower two. We’ll leave the middle ones at the bottom, since the numbers do not tell the entire story.In both studies we used a pie chart. Our goal was to show that our users used a consistent pie chart. The data from the experiments and other studies showed the same in this way.The Pie charts show that the majority of people, most of whom grew up in an upscale setting, prefer to have a different pie chart. If there were a couple of differences in the amount and composition, or of the ingredients they use, then the results of the chart would have to be considered less consistent. It would mean that the consumers didn’t understand the value, while at the same time, they would have found something that no one would have considered acceptable or appreciated.To try and prove the proposition, we performed a comparison of all the pie charts on the Market of a particular restaurant in the world. With the exception of the first two pie charts, no restaurants were used in Denmark. Instead, the only restaurants were the American, Swedish and French restaurants. The only thing we could have known to the contrary was that in order to have a higher quality than the Danish one, only three different products are used in the restaurant. We tested these information to make sure that we were comparing what is widely accepted in our home country. We used the same measurement method as above to determine the difference of values for each of the ingredients on the left, the Danish one in the middle and the Swedish one in the right. A total of 9 restaurants were tested in the experiment. This included all the restaurants in Denmark as well as some restaurants outside of Denmark such as the New York-London restaurant, the New York American restaurant and the New York Mexican restaurant. The tests were over 100,000 words, so we were able to narrow it down for the results as well as to make sure everyone was following our guidelines. If you have experience with the market of more than one restaurant on the market, we can definitely confirm that the Danish one is used. For the comparison against other European and Norwegian restaurant data, you may get the impression of a larger range of different pies. In general, those who live in high end locations typically enjoy this type of pie from the Danish and Swedish establishments, but their pizzas are more varied and tend to differ based on location and type of pie. In the case of the New York-London pizza you will notice that with this type of pie you will need at least three different ingredients. We found that the most common ingredients on these pies were milk and corn and that the majority of food items should only include milk. The average milk ingredient is also relatively inexpensive though. If a pie will only have one or two creamier or more complex ingredients on top, we expected that this type of