What is a donut chart? Definition, use cases and tips for better data visualizations
You already know it: data visualization plays a vital role in business decision-making. Whether you're creating a sales report, analyzing market segments, or presenting budget allocations, donut charts offer a clear and visually appealing way to show how different parts contribute to a whole. Let's focus on the doughnut chart's specificities.
What is a donut chart?
A donut chart (also called doughnut chart) is a circular data visualization characterized by a hollow center or blank space, setting it apart from traditional pie charts.
Instead of complete slices, data is represented through arcs forming a ring-like graph structure, where each segment represents a proportion of the dataset that adds up to 100 %. This chart type is commonly created using tools like Excel, JavaScript, Canva or Adobe.
To create a donut chart:
- Set up your data set
- Check that values add up to 100
- Create test data if needed
- Draw arc borders
- Cut out the middle space
- Add description and source
- Left with proportional segments
What are the types of donut charts?
Simple donut charts
The classic donut chart displays data in a single ring format, with each arc representing a percentage of the whole. Its hollow center can either remain empty or contain supplementary information such as labels, totals, or key metrics. This type particularly shines when presenting straightforward proportional data.
Exploded donut charts
This variation features intentionally detached segments to emphasize specific categories. While maintaining the basic ring structure, exploded donut charts can incorporate multiple data series and often use decorative 3D effects to enhance visual appeal, though they don't provide true three-dimensional representation !
When should you use a donut chart?
As a business leader, you'll find donut charts uniquely suited to visualize your key metrics.
- For financial oversight, you can instantly grasp budget allocations and revenue distributions across departments.
- In market analysis, a single chart will show you market share breakdowns at a glance.
- Your HR team can effectively track workforce distribution and training completion rates.
- Portfolio managers can leverage multi-ring donut charts to present asset allocation across different investment categories while showing geographical distribution in concentric rings.
When integrated into your dashboards, these charts enable real-time monitoring of resource utilization and team performance. Their versatility shines in period-over-period analysis, helping you spot trends and changes in KPIs effortlessly.
Advantages and limitations of donut charts
The donut chart presents a mix of strengths and limitations as a data visualization tool.
On the positive side, it offers space efficiency compared to traditional pie charts and shifts focus to arc lengths rather than areas. Its minimalist design reduces cognitive load while remaining highly customizable with colors, labels, and annotations. The format transcends cultural and linguistic barriers, making it globally accessible. Last but not least: it supports features like nested rings and segment highlighting through thickness adjustment, with many software packages providing automatic percentage calculations.
However, several significant drawbacks exist:
- The chart becomes unreadable with numerous small segments and cannot represent negative values.
- Without percentage labels, data interpretation relies solely on visual estimation, which can be misleading, especially when comparing inner and outer rings where outer segments may appear larger despite representing smaller values.
- The format struggles with time-series data and constantly evolving datasets, limiting its effectiveness to static comparisons with a modest number of categories.
Alternatives charts for complementary visualizations
When a donut chart isn't the right choice, consider alternatives! A bar chart works better for comparing individual values, like monthly sales figures. A stacked bar chart might be more effective for showing both total sales and product category breakdowns over multiple years. For complex hierarchical data, such as sales by region, country, and city, a treemap often works better.
The choice between these visualizations should be guided by the specific data story being told and the audience's needs. Sometimes, combining a donut chart with complementary visualizations can provide the most comprehensive view of the data.