Pie Chart containing data of two levels

[cognostechie]

Does anybody know if a Pie chart can have inner and outer pie to reflect the higher and the lower levels of the dimension, like the one attached. The inner one shows the Country and the outer ones show the states within that country.

Thanks in advance

[BigChris]

May I suggest that a stacked bar chart would give you a more legible chart...? When you get a moment, take a look at https://www.perceptualedge.com/articles/visual_business_intelligence/save_the_pies_for_dessert.pdf to understand why I very rarely use a pie chart in any guise.

[Invisi]

In addition to supporting Big Chris about listening to Few in following a no-pies diet in your visualisations, what actually do you want to show? What benefit do you want to achieve from showing the state values next to the country values?

I suggest to use a ranked horizontal bar chart for countries and a small multiples bar chart for showing the same for states within the countries. You can achieve small multiples for a chart with a repeater table. This way you can see which countries bring the highest benefit and within each country which state brings the highest benefit. This will include their ratio's of benefit, thanks to the visual provided by using bars instead of pie.

[BigChris]

That's a much more elegant solution than my stacked bar suggestion...I'll definitely have to bear that approach in mind for future use.

[cognostechie]

Sounds more of a hatred than a technical suggestion ! I never ate an apple pie that tasted salty so I don't hate pies !

One is not a replacement for the other as both of you are suggesting. Bar chart has it's own strength, agreed, but Pie is also desired. In this case, having two separate bar charts is not as good as having one pie with inner and outer circles which would make it a lot easier to read and appealing to the audience. Apart from the technical perspective, a Pie is also needed to make the dashboard look appealing which is what is necessary for presentations when you try to sell something. Having a  combination of charts does the trick and Pies are definitely a preference among others. 

[BigChris]

Fair enough...I can see your point about pie charts being pretty and if you want to sell a dashboard then I guess you need some eye-candy to do that. In terms of usability though I've never seen a pie chart that couldn't be better presented by a different chart type.

Each to their own though - sometimes it just comes down to personal preference.

[cognostechie]

I tried your suggestion of stacked bar chart and it does make sense to use that instead of a Pie. It's better for comparison because it does show the data well even if the percentage of the value is minimal which a Pie does not show very well. I have to see the other method you suggested of having charts with a repeater table. Do you have an example / screenshot that you could post here so that I can get the idea as to how it will look like? I would still need the Pie for eye candy but these are good suggestions for usability and I could use these in another dashboard.