Infographics are surprisingly effective in delivering large chunks of information within a very short timeframe. They also make all those stats much easier to understand, interpret, and finally, incorporate into executive decisions.
Pie charts can be one of the easiest to understand and highly effective tools in your arsenal for creating highly effective infographic presentations. That is only true, however, if the pie charts are created with some crucial aspects in mind. Without them, those same round circles of stats can turn into the most difficult to read figures in the entire presentation. Avoid making your pie charts a problem area by following the three tips as suggested next.
Use a Quick and Easy Pie Chart Maker
The more complicated a pie chart creation tool is, the more problematic it will be for you to use it in a productive manner. It will end up taking a lot more time than it should, but more importantly, the end result is unlikely to be to your liking either. If it’s too complicated, that likely means creating pie chart was not a focus in that application’s design.
When you use a dedicated pie chart maker this this pie chart maker, the process is always going to be much simpler. You can make pie charts online for free, which is great news, given that it’s one of the most comprehensive tools for infographics creation available today.
Follow the Rule of 5
The golden rule of better pie chart creation is to limit the number of slices to 5 at most, but you can stretch it out a bit by including as many as 7. The general idea is to always keep the number of slices as low as possible and preferably below 6. If that does not seem to be enough to get the job done, just add another pie chart that follows the same rule of 5. If none of that seems to be the right option, then you should probably use a different type of chart.
Follow the Clock
The clockwise rule states that the slices in a pie chart should go from right to left in a clockwise motion, following the descending order. For example, take a section of a business infographic where there are 5 streams of revenue, and the pie chart is representing their respective contributions to the total revenue for any given quarter/year. Following the clockwise rule of descension, the 5 slices will have 40%, 27%, 20%, 9%, and 4% respectively from left to right. The anticlockwise style may also work, although it’s not generally used.
Also, as a general rule, 3D pie charts are not the best way to represent stats. Pie charts are typically meant to be 2D by design. It’s true that 3D pie charts do look quite good when used correctly, but they are unable to visually represent the divisions adequately. Viewers should be able to see the entire chart without any distortions, which only a 2D pie chart can achieve.
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