Mehmet TekmanFeb 28, 2024
Martin Modrák
A nice little paper arguing that Chord diagrams are generally harder to understand than Sankney plots for the same data. Relevant for when people will next request the "nice circular diagrams" for a bioinformatics analysis: https://dl.acm.org/doi/fullHtml/10.1145/3544548.3581119
#hci #plots #bioinformatics
Showing Flow: Comparing Usability of Chord and Sankey Diagrams | Proceedings of the 2023 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems

ACM Conferences
Feb 27, 2024 at 12:15pmWeb
Show threadCharles Tapley HoytFeb 27, 2024
@modrak_m I agree that showing these side by side totally makes the point that the right (non-circular) one is much easier to describe and read. Thanks for the share
Show threadJane AdamsFeb 27, 2024
@modrak_m oh wow I feel so vindicated, I always hated chord diagrams and I'm so glad someone thought to perform this study
Show threadOliverUvFeb 27, 2024
@janeadams @modrak_m my gut instinct that all diagrams that are circular in any way (pie charts etc) are bad continues to be vindicated also
Show threadLeo Ré JorgeFeb 27, 2024
@modrak_m interesting that in bioinformatics these are still in use... Ecological networks moved away from circular representations into bipartite graphs (even though not calling it sankey) about 10-15 years ago...
Show threadHelena Klara JamborFeb 27, 2024
@modrak_m RIP, Martin (circoid) himself is not really a fan . ...
Show threadDan Neuman 🇨🇦Feb 27, 2024

@modrak_m Those are great example supporting the thesis. The Chord diagram seems to distort relative values, too.

An economist on Twitter was promoting their "donut economics" idea which was really just a multi-layer pie chart with a hole in it. It didn't seem to be more useful than a bar chart, while making it harder to compare values.

Choosing the right chart style is important. Clarity is more important than novelty.

Show threadScott CainFeb 28, 2024
@modrak_m
But the circular plots are so pretty!!1!
Seriously, I’ve worked in genome browsers for a long time and absolutely, simpler (linear) is almost always going to be better