To help the average person understand big data and numbers, we often use visual summaries, such as pie charts. But while non-numerate folk will avoid numbers, most numerate folk will avoid pie charts.

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With this type of data, it's better to use a chart that allows easy comparison of the values, such as a column chart, bar chart or pie chart. When you have a large set of discrete data that doesn ...

Save guides, add subjects and pick up where you left off with your BBC account. A pie chart can show collected data in sectors. Each sector can be labelled, or can be colour coded with a key.

However, Professor Adrian Barnett, a statistician at the Queensland University of Technology, and researcher Victor Ogwoma argue that ``pie charts should not be used to display data'' and explain why.