In a comparison of forty different kinds of graphs, the pie chart has been declared the most popular with ordinary people who don't understand graphs.
"There is something visually appealing about a pie chart," said Hillman Impclub, chief statologist for the Royal Institute of Maths and Stats. "Whilst those with a mathematical bet prefer a graph that is appropriate to the data, if you need to get a message across to Joe Bloggs, or his sister Jane, then they get the message better with a pie chart."
With this in mind, Impclub has attempted to create a brand new graph type based on the pie chart that can display data that ordinary pie charts fail, such as subset data.
"It looks like a pie chart, but each segment has a variety of different colours and textures to represent the subset data. I call it a quiche chart."
The quiche chart has all the visual appeal of the pie chart, and yet can get across much more complicated data.
"I like it," said Joe Bloggs, and his sister Jane agreed. "It looks good enough to eat."
Even fellow statologists are impressed with the first new graph since the spider graph that was invented in 1922.
"I'm very impressed," said Julie Ann Dates, Impclub's opposite number at the Massachusetts Institute of Cooking. "So impressed in fact, that we created a real quiche chart and a real pie chart in cookery class."
A quick study in the cafeteria revealed that people generally enjoyed both, with the quiche chart the more popular by a tiny bit.
"I've got to admit the quiche chart was my favourite," said one student. "It had bacon bits in."
