Field note · August 30, 2024
The category that eats the chart
4 values with 46.5% concentrated in one of them, and what that does to every chart downstream.
region on saas-subscriptions has 4 values, and one of them is 46.5% of the data.
AMER— 1,162 rows, 46.5%EMEA— 744 rows, 29.8%APAC— 427 rows, 17.1%LATAM— 167 rows, 6.7%
The top three take 93.3% between them. With only 4 values there is no tail to worry about, which makes this a genuinely easy column to chart.
select region,
count(*) as rows,
round(100.0 * count(*) / sum(count(*)) over (), 1) as pct,
round(avg(mrr_usd)::numeric, 2) as avg_mrr_usd
from saas_subscriptions
group by 1
order by rows desc;The second column is the one that matters. Share of rows tells you what is common; avg_mrr_usd tells you whether the common thing is the important thing. They disagree more often than not, and a chart that shows only the first is answering the easier question.
Decide what happens to the tail before you plot it. "Other" as an explicit bucket is honest; twelve slivers is not, and neither is silently taking the top eight.