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I'm presenting my users with a test.

When they reach the end of the test, I want to show their score in a donut chart like this (in this case, 80%):

Donut chart showing the user's score of 80%

Note that there will be other information on screen like "Hey, you passed!" (so, for example, the color will not be the only thing indicating their pass/fail status). This question is specifically about the chart.

Is a user likely to misinterpret the donut chart as an indication of their progress through the test (on question 8 out of 10) rather than an indication of their score (eight correct answers of of ten questions)?

More succinctly, is this an appropriate use of a donut chart?

Wynn
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  • You're gonna have to give us a little more context. – plainclothes May 05 '15 at 00:01
  • That red color doesn't exactly look encouraging.... – mginn May 05 '15 at 00:46
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    Nice edits. This is much clearer as a question...am voting to re-open it – tohster May 05 '15 at 12:08
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    Though the edits help the question is still too specific for anyone to give any real insightful answer based on the information given. We don't know the user base, we don't know what the rest of the page looks like where this is presented. You're ultimately asking us to interpret the reaction of a user to a system we don't know -- the only people that can really answer this question is the user. The answer is ultimately "do user testing" -- when the test is complete, ask them: "what's your score?" to find out if they can figure it out. – Nicholas Pappas May 05 '15 at 15:04
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    @EvilClosetMonkey I think it's perfectly clear and asks whether the donut is good UI. – DarrylGodden May 05 '15 at 15:28
  • @DarrylGodden - Is a user likely to misinterpret the donut chart as an indication of their progress through the test (on question 8 out of 10) rather than an indication of their score (eight correct answers of of ten questions)? is the question. The fact that it is a donut chart, or not, makes no difference in knowing if the user will misinterpret "this chart" for the progress over "that chart" or "the other chart". – Nicholas Pappas May 05 '15 at 15:32
  • @EvilClosetMonkey so you agree with me, it is a valid UI question. – DarrylGodden May 05 '15 at 15:34
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    @DarrylGodden - You can play that if you like. For this site, it is not. It is not an question that has a "right" answer given the context, and may still not given more context. Your answer demonstrates this; there is no information there other than "in my opinion" with no data to back it up, which is a top-level reason to close a question. It can still be improved and be an answerable question within the scope of UX.SE, but it is not at present. – Nicholas Pappas May 05 '15 at 15:44
  • @EvilClosetMonkey Plenty of UX/UI is opinion. – DarrylGodden May 05 '15 at 15:45
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    @EvilClosetMonkey From a UX perspective, there is a "best practice" answer for this type of chart (which I've provided). This is an increasingly common chart type and I think it's valuable for SE to have covered this point. – plainclothes May 05 '15 at 15:57

2 Answers2

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Just label it!

The beauty of donut charts is the ability to include explanatory and informative labels. You have the informative part there, but you've left out the explanation.

Try something like this:

enter image description here

Community
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plainclothes
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'Appropriate' is not something I'd consider, does it work well? Tought to say, can you canvas users for their opinion? I'm a user and my opinion, without seeing the finish screen, as long as the donut is titled along the lines of "You scored:" then it could work.

We used the same on a statistical data report showing 335/500 constituents sort of thing.

The danger remains that without terminology the user could interpret it as progress or questions answered.

DarrylGodden
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