And now to our

Chamber of Horrors for:

. Dashboards :-(

. Mobile Dashboards :-(

. Charts :-(

. Brutal graphs :-(

in particular:

. Rings :-(

. Circles :-(

. Pies :-(

. Spiders :-(

. Spaghettis :-(

. Lies :-(

. Strips :-)

In addition to circles or pie wedges, torus shapes, and rings, we are now increasingly coming across spider charts, also known as web charts, polar charts, or radar charts. They are probably one of the least transparent and most unnecessary forms of visualization...

They can certainly be useful for a two-dimensional analysis in the form of rich-poor and old-young and, of course, for the analysis of cardinal points. But they are then confusing when years run in a circle or various criteria are presented in a more or less arbitrary sequence. Then the visual impression depends primarily on the sequence of the criteria used - and this is almost always random...

Click on the pictures to enlarge them.

... and the winner is ...

Source: Qlikview December 2011
Even if viewed for a long time, we still find it hard to figure out this visualization...
Here the original document and here the link to Qlikview and here to download (pdf, 0.5 MB).

Use the mouseover function

to enlarge the small images.

Source: is-Report  June 2003

This visualization, which I have never understood, had been the previous winner in the spider category.

Source: Chartingcontrol.net

Nice - but not particularly well suited to understanding an exciting message...

Source: dundas

One can easily imagine how different the visual impression would be with a different sequence on countries...
And: The same changes farther out would lead to a much greater change in areas(!).
Upshot: Stick with your bar chart...

Source: Nevron
 

Source: Ilog.com

Source: Bridgestone

Source: avexys

Source: pneuma

Quote: "A radar (net) chart enables a particularly transparent (sic!) comparison of different product alternatives using the relative differences in the results of the alternatives."