Playfair’s Workshop — Data Village · Data Stories
Can you imagine a world with no bar charts? William Playfair invented some of the charts we use every day. William Playfair was born in Scotland in 1759.
Can you imagine a world with no bar charts? William Playfair invented some of the charts we use every day.
The Story
William Playfair was born in Scotland in 1759. In 1786 he published an atlas full of line and bar charts about his country’s trade, something almost no one had done before.
In 1801, in a book called «Statistical Breviary», he published one of the first ever pie charts, to compare countries. Before Playfair, numbers showed up mainly in tables. He realised that your eyes compare sizes far faster than you read columns of numbers.
Key Ideas
- Line graph: Shows how something changes over time.
- Bar chart: Compares amounts side by side, with bars of different lengths.
- Pie chart: Shows the parts that make up a whole, like slices of a pie.
- Scale: The ruler of a chart. It has to be fair so the chart doesn’t trick people.
Step by Step
- Pick a question.
- Collect the numbers.
- Choose the right chart.
- Draw the scale.
- Write a clear title.
Try it Yourself
Ask your family what their favourite fruit is. Make a bar chart and a pie chart with the answers.
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