Bar Charts versus Circle Diagrams
Abstract
(1927). Bar Charts versus Circle Diagrams. Journal of the American Statistical Association: Vol. 22, No. 160, pp. 473-482.
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Cleveland, W. S., & McGill, R. (1984) · Journal of the American Statistical Association · doi:10.1080/01621459.1984.10478080 · Cited by 1,797 · see citing works
“More than 50 years ago a battle raged on the pages of the Journal of the American Statistical Association about the relative merits of bar charts and pie charts (Eells 1926; Croxton 1927; Croxton and Stryker 1927; von Huhn 1927).”
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“…late 1920's and early 1930's, F. E. Croxton and others published a series of papers in JASA reporting on studies comparing the relative merits of circles, bars, squares, and cubes for certain types of displays (e.g., see Eells 1926, Croxton and Stryker 1927, Huhn 1927, and Croxton and Stein 1932).”
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“His advocacy quickly produced critics who conducted their own experiments (Croxton, 1927; Croxton & Stein, 1932; Croxton & Stryker, 1927; von Huhn, 1927), but these early empirical studies were of widely varying quality, were generally inconclusive, and did not convincingly reverse Eells’s findings.”
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“[24] compare bar charts with circle diagrams for representing component parts, while Cleveland and McGill [25] study how different bar chart designs impact the accuracy of relative height esti-”
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“Comparing the pie chart and the bar graph, Croxton and Stryker ( 1 ) found that when graphs express only two proportions, the pie is read more accurately if the proportions are 50-50 or 25-75, but that there is little to choose between the two forms with other proportions.”
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“Some of the early work in this vein dates back to paper-based statistical graphics, such as results by Eells et al. [28] from 1927, by Croxton et al. [20] in 1927 on pie charts, bar charts, and circle diagrams, and by Croxton et al. [19] in 1932 on shapes for comparison.”
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“stacked bar charts found that often pie charts outperformed or were en par with stacked bars according to accuracy [20], [27], [46] but that stacked bar tasks were often completed more quickly [27], [46], [83].”
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“Early graphical controversies centered on the debate regarding the application of single parameter pie graphs and bar plots to data (Eells 1926, Croxton 1927, Croxton and Stryker 1927, Von Hurn 1927, Kruskal 1982).”
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“, who compared barcharts with circle diagrams and piecharts in 1927 [6], as well as investigated the effectiveness of various shapes for comparison in 1932 [5].”
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“In a follow up study with a different setting, Croxton and Stryker [15] also tested the effectiveness of divided bar charts and pie charts using a proportional comparison task.”
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Li, Y., Berger, E. D., Kahng, M., & Xiong, C. (2025) · Visualization · doi:10.1109/vis60296.2025.00079
“…when visualizing categorical data (with up to five categories) using pie charts versus divided bar charts, pie charts are associated with higher performance [9] (although work by Simkin et al. [36] and Spence et al. [38] have showed bar and pie charts to lead to comparable performance levels).”
- Authors
- Croxton, F. E., & Stryker, R. E.
- Affiliations
- Columbia University (US)
- Venue
- Journal of the American Statistical Association
- Publisher
- Informa UK Limited
- Published
- 1927-12
- Volume
- 22
- Issue
- 160
- Pages
- 473-482
- ISSN
- 0162-1459 (ISSN-L)
- 1537-274X
- OpenAlex
- W2170713214
- Cited by
- 81
- References
- 0
- Citations by year
- 2025: 3 · 2024: 3 · 2023: 5 · 2022: 2 · 2021: 1 · 2020: 3 · 2019: 8 · 2018: 4 · 2017: 4 · 2016: 2
- FWCI
- 0.00
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Journal of the American Statistical Association (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition › Data Visualization and Analytics
- Physical Sciences › Mathematics › Statistics and Probability › Statistical Methods and Applications
- Physical Sciences › Mathematics › Statistics and Probability › Probability and Statistical Research
- Keywords
- bar charts, circle diagram, pie charts, data visualization, graphical representation of data
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