[BeetleB]

As someone who has fought this battle many times:

People don't want accuracy.

People don't want details.

People want pretty.

They will reject any other type of plot that is better than pie charts on the other two metrics.

Hence, pie chart.

The higher up you go, the more important the appearance is, and the less important the details are. The role of most presentations is not to get people to understand, but to impress. Senior folks have given feedback that "Your presentation slides don't have enough details. If you make it easy for the audience to understand, they will undervalue your work."

[pattusk]

Is it just me or does TFA's whole argument rests upon the assumption that you don't add labels to your pie charts ?

If I add percentages or values to the chart, there are no issues with either interpretation or comprehension. The pie chart is just a visually pleasant way to display data compared to, say, a table or a bar chart. Data that's displayed in a boring is quickly forgotten, but data presented in a striking way will help your point being remembered. It's akin to rhetoric/style in writing. You can write in a matter-of-fact descriptive way and bore 90% of readers to death, or you can articulate your point with striking metaphors, rhythm, etc... and make an impact.

This is an issue that I often notice with engineers. They assume that communication is transparent. A five page long table of figures? Sure! A front-end with tons of buttons, slide bars for every adjustable parameters and a full report of everything going on under the hood? Who wouldn't want that!

There's nothing wrong with pretty. You don't always have to sacrifice accuracy to get pretty. And pretty ensures that your accurate data isn't ignored.

[BeetleB]

Again, it's a question of whether you are trying to convey details, or look pretty.

If you add numbers to the pie chart, then you don't need the chart at all. The benefit of a bar chart is that you don't need to list the individual percentages. At a quick glance, you can get more information from a bar chart than you can from a pie chart.

But if you're not trying to convey details, a pie chart is prettier.

[jeffparsons]

If you want something like a pie chart, you can always go for a donut chart. It's still flawed as a communication tool if clarity is your main goal, but it's at least arguably prettier than a pie chart and easier to read the relative sizes accurately.