5 Errors in your pie charts

Pie charts appeal to people making slide presentations, but in many cases data visualization professionals avoid them or, if they decide to use them, are very careful about how they design them.

Here are 5 signs your pie charts might fail in communicating clearly:

1) Using a pie chart, when another chart would be more effective, usually a horizontal bar chart

2) Having too many slices, when it’s generally best to limit the segments in a pie to 5

3) Ordering without purpose, when it’s generally best to order from largest to smallest, starting at 12 o’clock on the right with the largest segment, usually the most important one

4) Inserting a legend on the side, when directly labeling each segment would make it easier to read

5) Using a 3D pie chart, which generally makes it hard to interpret and compare segments

As an example, the pie chart below makes all the mistakes listed above.

A simpler, clearer chart would be a horizontal bar chart, something like this:

Next time you are thinking about a chart for you data, think hard before you choose a pie chart, and if you choose it, try to avoid these five mistakes.

If this tip is useful, let me know.

(first published on Linkedin Pulse: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/5-errors-your-pie-charts-alessandra-cimatti