Worst... Graph... Ever...

http://www.fjhs.ednet.ns.ca/math/circlegraphs.htm

While I could of put this graph as an image, I wanted you to be able to see it's original content; the graph is from an instructional website for making pie charts. Now, looking at the graph, it might not be obvious what the issue is, which is exactly what makes it so bad. As a general rule in informational graphics like a pie chart, the visual area needs to be proportional to the percentage of that component. However, when one uses 3D graphs, it is very easy to forget this rule. By making the graph in terms of volume instead of area, larger sections are proportionally far larger than smaller sections. This creates the visual effect that Tuition and Fees account for more than 10 times as much of the total cost as room, when it really only contributes about 4 times as much. Further more, by makin the graph 3D, there has to be some amount of forced perspective created by "angling" the graph. What this actually does, however, is stretch the potions of the graph that are lower on the visual, and shrink those that are higher up. The end result is, again, a loss of visual accuracy in the pie chart. There is one last component of this graph that makes it misleading, and that comes from the organization of the graph. This chart seems to have decreasing values as one moves clockwise around, from Tuition and Fees to Room, to Board. HOWEVER, Books is a smaller portion of the total cost than Transportation. By placing it out of order, it is likely a viewer will think that books costs more than transportation, further misleading them. I am also disgusting that the graph DOES NOT HAVE A TITLE. As of right now, I am only guessing this is a pie chart of where college costs end up coming from, but as of right now I have no idea which college, or if it's something else entirely because whoever made this visual neglected to tell me. My final issue with this graph is what it's being used for. The graph is presented as an example for 2D pie charts. The page this is on does not teach you how to make terrible 3D graphs like this, it teaches you how to make actually functional 2D ones. This horrible graphic is not even relevant to the circumstances it's presented in.

(In case you couldn't tell, misleading graphs [that weren't intentionally made that way by myself] are one of my biggest pet-peeves.)