Data Visualization - Charts with lots of metrics/colors [closed]

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Okay. I'm working on theming some dynamic charts for some proprietary software. Most of the charts are line, column, or stacked column charts. These are all easy to theme because we're only talking like 4 metrics max being displayed in one chart at a time. However, one of the most-used chart types in the so开发者_运维百科ftware is a pie chart, and these could have 30+ slices at any given time.

I've been given the exciting task of making sure that all charts (including pie charts with 30+ slices) look beautiful and cohesive. I find it nearly impossible to make a pie chart with 30+ slices look beautiful AND scannable, but I'd love to be proven wrong.

Any great examples out there of complex charts with many metrics/colors that work visually AND read well?

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Drill down pie charts seem like a good bet. If that won't work, you could group similar items by color and separate items by shade. Seems like that would cover most of your needs.

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I don't think it's possible to make a pie chart look good and be easily readable when it has 30+ slices. A different chart would be probably be better in that kind of situation.

This is just personal opinion, but I think ~5-7 slices is the most that a pie chart should have to still be easily readable.

Is changing the chart type an option? The data is being presented one way or another.

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I ended up just going with various shades of the company's branding colors. This example only shows 14 slices. I've essentially decided not to support going over 25 slices for the time being instead of pushing it further as it's really my belief that the purpose of these charts is for quick scannability of data.

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Does it need to be a pie chart? How about using a tree map?

TheJit: Cushion TreeMap

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For quickly scanning the data and, just as important or even more so, comprehending the data, please consider using a horizontal bar graph and ditching the pie chart.