Building Pie Charts

Quick reference

• 00:04 In this video we're going to look at pie charts.
• 00:06 But before we do, I need to tell you why you should try and
• 00:10 avoid using these charts at all costs as much as possible.
• 00:15 The challenge is that your brain is not very good at working out angles or areas.
• 00:21 And the challenge with pie charts is they're all about angles and areas.
• 00:24 So it is very difficult to read the data in a pie chart
• 00:27 without actually having a legend or the specific numbers on it.
• 00:31 And this is nothing personal, it's just something to do with the human brain,
• 00:34 that we're not as good at working with angles as we are with straight lines.
• 00:38 So my rule of thumb is, if you absolutely have to put a pie chart on your worksheet,
• 00:43 it should have no more than three data series.
• 00:45 As soon as you get to three data series or more, You should be flipping it out to
• 00:49 a bar chart or a column chart, because your brain is excellent
• 00:52 at drawing the distinction between two lines of different length.
• 00:56 Having said that, pie charts are asked for by name, and
• 00:59 sometimes you just have to put one in.
• 01:00 So let me show you how to build the most effective one we can.
• 01:04 We're gonna start by selecting our data, and
• 01:06 we're not picking up the headers this time here.
• 01:08 We're just gonna go with the spent, remaining, and the values.
• 01:11 And we're gonna go to insert and recommended charts.
• 01:14 And you'll notice that the pie chart is not the first most recommended chart.
• 01:17 It says use a column chart instead.
• 01:19 Regardless, we're gonna choose pie chart, and we'll say OK.
• 01:25 The challenge with pie charts is that they have this dense color saturation fill,
• 01:29 this is one of the other problems with them.
• 01:31 And it screams for your attention when it's on a report.
• 01:33 No matter what else is on that report, the pie chart is in the corner going hey,
• 01:37 hey I'm over here.
• 01:38 And it wants to keep dragging your attention back to it,
• 01:41 and that's a real challenge.
• 01:42 So what we're gonna do with this is we're still gonna make some changes to give it
• 01:46 some context.
• 01:47 We give it a nice title.
• 01:48 So we'll link this, grab the chart title so
• 01:50 it equals the project spending forecast.
• 01:52 But what we're gonna do is we're gonna soften this chart so
• 01:55 that it's not quite as obnoxious.
• 01:58 So to do that, what I've done is I've selected the chart once and
• 02:02 now I'm going to select the blue series again.
• 02:04 And you can see it makes a very subtle difference in the user interface,
• 02:07 not much at all.
• 02:08 I'm gonna right-click on this and I'm gonna say Format Data Point.
• 02:14 Now at this point, I'm gonna go to the Fill Bucket and
• 02:18 I'm gonna change a couple things.
• 02:20 Number one, I'm gonna change the border to a solid line, and
• 02:22 I'm gonna set it to a solid blue line, no problem.
• 02:27 I'm then also gonna go to Fill.
• 02:30 And I'm gonna set it to No Fill, so that's gonna empty it out just a little bit.
• 02:35 Now we'll select the orange data points.
• 02:38 And on this one, again, I'm gonna go to the Border, I'm gonna say Solid Line,
• 02:42 and you'll notice that it's giving me a blue line.
• 02:45 We don't want that.
• 02:47 Let's go with a dark red.
• 02:50 And we'll go up again to the fill and choose no fill.
• 02:54 This is gonna be less obnoxious, this thing's not gonna be screaming for
• 02:58 your attention with that dense color saturation all the time.
• 03:00 At least this can fade in and fade out of view.
• 03:03 But there's still some things we can do here.
• 03:06 What I'm gonna do now is I'm gonna click outside the chart because I want to get
• 03:09 off the selection of the individual wedge.
• 03:11 And I'll select the pie again.
• 03:15 I'm gonna make the pie explosion go about 10%,
• 03:19 just a little bit to get that wedge out of the middle.
• 03:22 Something to make it sort of seem a little bit more different here.
• 03:26 We're also gonna right-click on this, and we're gonna say, Add Data Labels.
• 03:30 These are really important for a pie chart, because we need to be able to see,
• 03:34 there's no way of knowing what we're actually looking at here.
• 03:38 So, I also would like to change this.
• 03:40 I don't really need the numbers so much, as far as my project spending forecast.
• 03:45 I don't probably want my dollar values here.
• 03:46 What I'm more interested in is the percent complete.
• 03:49 So if I select these numbers, and we go to our Label Options,
• 03:55 you'll notice that we have the option to change some things.
• 03:57 I can add a percentage.
• 03:59 So 83%.
• 04:01 I can also uncheck the value, and I can add say, the series name.
• 04:06 Well, that doesn't give me a lot.
• 04:08 It's series 1.
• 04:08 Well, let's try the category name.
• 04:11 And there we go.
• 04:11 We've got spent and remaining.
• 04:14 We can also now recognize the label position is automatically jumping to
• 04:18 the outside here.
• 04:19 This is what's called best fit.
• 04:21 If the chart's too small to show it, it'll kick this outside.
• 04:24 But if the chart gets bigger and the remaining will fit inside,
• 04:28 it'll fit there, no problem.
• 04:29 So this is how I would go about actually building a chart that's a little bit more
• 04:34 effective and a little bit less obnoxious.
• 04:36 You can put it up in the corner of your worksheet, and
• 04:38 it'll be there when you need it, when you need to look at that pie.
• 04:42 But the challenge is that, say when it's got fully dense saturation
• 04:45 of color in there, it's constantly screaming for
• 04:48 your attention more than anything else on the page, and that's not cool.
• 04:51 We wanna get in when we need it, and get out when we don't, and
• 04:55 not have to focus on it anymore.

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