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Ben Shneiderman’s Chart Pies

Robert Kosara / September 15, 2016

Ben Shneiderman’s Chart Pies

So turns out Ben Shneiderman is into pies! Actual pies that is, but in the form of charts. Rather than, you know, the other way around. Feast your eyes on delicious-looking chart pies!

I’m pulling a Gelman here by just quoting Ben’s email:

I’ve started a new hobby– baking peach pies.  I did a few this summer with the usual crisscross pattern but a friend thought these were too much like a traditional rectangular lattice.  So I’ve made him a parallel coords one (see photo) with peaches and strawberries. My next challenge is a treemap pie.

I thought you might like this as an item for Eager Eyes…I’m sure you’ll find something clever to say about these pies.  Maybe we can inspire a VIS PIE contest.

Who would take issue with a VIS PIE contest? What could go wrong with promoting pies at VIS?

Anyway, Ben is not the only one. Moritz Stefaner and others have turned data into food in their Data Cuisine. And Noeska Smit has a fun little blog called GameCakes (not really vis, and you have to scroll past the crocheted Androids, but her research is in visualization, so that counts).

Food and vision clearly go together. In one of my more ludicrous postings, I once wondered what other foods could inspire chart types.

I, for one, am looking forward to the treemap pie – delicious metaphor confusion and all.

Filed Under: Blog 2016

Robert Kosara is Data Visualization Developer at Observable. Before that, he was Research Scientist at Tableau Software (2012–2022) and Associate Professor of Computer Science (2005–2012). His research focus is the communication of data using visualization. In addition to blogging, Robert also runs and tweets. Read More…

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Comments

  1. Noeska Smit says

    September 15, 2016 at 10:23 pm

    Wow, thanks for the mention! I haven’t baked a game-themed cake in a while though. Maybe I should pick it up again, change direction to medical visualization themed cakes ^^. So we’ll have some baking at VIS this year?

    Reply
  2. Katherine Peterson says

    September 16, 2016 at 6:36 am

    “I once wondered what other foods could inspire chart types.” Need I say, spaghetti and network maps?

    Reply

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