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this post was submitted on 21 Nov 2025
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The main positives of an analog clock revolve around how it visualizes time time relative to other parts of the day.
When the hour hand is on 9, you can see at a glance it is two hours from 11 and three hours from 12 without needing to do the calculation in your head. When the hour hand is in the upper right, you know is it shortly after noon or midnight depending on how bright it is outside. When looking at the minute hand, if you see something started at 2:10 you don't need to remember the exact time, just where the minute hand was when you started and estimating being half or a third done until 3:10 is pretty easy. 15 minutes is easy to figure out because it is a quarter of the circle.
It conveys this at a glance without needing to focus so much on the exact hour or minute. Visualizing our time results in thinking about how we are using our time.
Like anything else, that doesn't make it superior in every situation and they suffered from constantly being out of sync with each other by a few minutes or seconds.
Let's set up a quick 2hr stand up zoom meeting with the department heads and their staff to SWOT this out. How's Dec 24th about 3pm work for everyone?
I don't think most people need to do a mental calculation to know that 9 am is 3 hours from 12. That's just a fact that's easy to remember since you're exposed to it so often.
And when the digital clock says "1" or "2" you know it's either afternoon or the middle of the night. Even better, if you're using 24 hour time you know precisely if it's afternoon or early in the morning even if you're in an underground bunker.
Yes... you can just remember the "minutes" part of the time on a digital clock was too.
15 minutes is easy to figure out on a digital clock too because it's ultra simple math to just add or subtract 15 from a number below 60.
I'm imaging you dismissing the idea of a pie chart because obviously 8 is twice as large as 4 and knowing 8 is 2/3 of 12 is just a fact people know because they are exposed to it so often.
You should know that pie charts are widely seen as being very ineffective ways of communicating data.
All of the examples of bad pie charts are completely different than a pie chart viewed straight on with only two values. You know, the thing pie charts are perfect for.
With only 2 values? Why would you want that? And what makes you believe they're as good as a bar chart for that?
why would you use a bar chart to display a proportion?
Because it's easier for humans to read?
i'm not convinced that's true though. bar graphs are best for visualizing a simplification of an aggregate set and comparing it against a related aggregate set. that doesn't sound like a good way to visualize a proportion. much better to display a whole broken down into the componets of that whole.
Ok, well the people I linked to have done actual usability studies to back up their claims. But, you have a feeling?
i read them and am not refuting them. the conversation is about bad and good situations for pie charts. we're talking about a scenario in which what is being compared is two proportions. a scenario in which the articles you linked said a pie chart is a reasonable visualization
Reasonable, but not as good as a simple bar chart.