Oct Lunch & Learn - Effective Data Visualization

Presented by Andrew Gibson - Orchestro's VP of Analytics

Transcript

1. 1 | October 2, 2013 | CONFIDENTIAL
2. 2 | October 2, 2013 | CONFIDENTIAL EFFECTIVEDATA VISUALIZATION Andrew Gibson Vice President, Analytics
3. 3 | October 2, 2013 | CONFIDENTIAL “DESIGN IS NOT JUST WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE AND FEELS LIKE. DESIGN IS HOW IT WORKS.” Steve Jobs, 2003
4. 4 | October 2, 2013 | CONFIDENTIAL A VISUALIZATION THAT ALMOST NEVER WORKS The pie-chart
5. 5 | October 2, 2013 | CONFIDENTIAL THE PIE CHART • Uses angle (or area) to display value • An implied 0-100% scale around the circumference. • Uses color to encode categories – Vendor G – Others
6. 6 | October 2, 2013 | CONFIDENTIAL MAKING IT PRETTY
7. 7 | October 2, 2013 | CONFIDENTIAL GETTING REAL • Most pie-charts do not have just 2 values to display though • Quickly ! What is the share for “Vendor E” ? • How did you do that ? • Is this better ?
8. 8 | October 2, 2013 | CONFIDENTIAL A BETTER ALTERNATIVE • The bar chart • Easy to read (even without the data labels) • Easy to identify which Vendor is associated with each bar • Provides much more data in the same space It just works… why ?
9. 9 | October 2, 2013 | CONFIDENTIAL EXPERIMENTS IN HUMAN PERCEPTION
10. 10 | October 2, 2013 | CONFIDENTIAL WE ARE HARD-WIRED • Our ability to estimate values from visualizations depends on how data is presented to us. • In order of accuracy 1. Position along a common scale 2. Position along identical, non-aligned scales 3. Length 4. Angle/Slope 5. Area 6. Volume 7. Color Hue, Saturation, Density Source: William S. Cleveland and Robert McGill’s paper Graphical Perception: Theory, Experimentation, and Application to the Development of Graphical Methods (1984)
11. 11 | October 2, 2013 | CONFIDENTIAL POSITION ALONG A COMMON SCALE
12. 12 | October 2, 2013 | CONFIDENTIAL LENGTH • Stacked charts show the total (and first component) as position along a common scale • Other components require you to assess relative length • … hard isn’t it ?
13. 13 | October 2, 2013 | CONFIDENTIAL ANGLE AND AREA • Estimating angle is hard • It’s harder still in 3D  • (That’s why pie-charts always get labelled.) • Estimating value from area is pretty tough too
14. 14 | October 2, 2013 | CONFIDENTIAL COLOR HUE, SATURATION. DENSITY • If the yellow color is 100, what is the value of intense green ? • If you are one of the roughly 8% of men, 0.5% of women with some form of color-blindness … can you tell which one is “green” ?
15. 15 | October 2, 2013 | CONFIDENTIAL REMEMBER THIS, IT’S IMPORTANT • Our ability to estimate values from visualizations depends on how data is presented to us. • In order of accuracy 1. Position along a common scale 2. Position along identical, non-aligned scales 3. Length 4. Angle/Slope 5. Area 6. Volume 7. Color Hue, Saturation, Density Source: William S. Cleveland and Robert McGill’s paper Graphical Perception: Theory, Experimentation, and Application to the Development of Graphical Methods (1984)
16. 16 | October 2, 2013 | CONFIDENTIAL JUST BECAUSE YOU CAN… doesn’t mean you should
17. 17 | October 2, 2013 | CONFIDENTIAL JUST BECAUSE YOU CAN…
18. 18 | October 2, 2013 | CONFIDENTIAL JUST BECAUSE YOU CAN…
19. 19 | October 2, 2013 | CONFIDENTIAL JUST BECAUSE YOU CAN...
20. 20 | October 2, 2013 | CONFIDENTIAL JUST BECAUSE YOU CAN…
21. 21 | October 2, 2013 | CONFIDENTIAL OVER-DRESSED VISUALIZATIONS
22. 22 | October 2, 2013 | CONFIDENTIAL OVER-DRESSED VISUALIZATIONS • … obscure the meaning and make it hard to use. • Let’s see what happens as we strip out what we don’t need – chart junk – non-data ink
23. 23 | October 2, 2013 | CONFIDENTIAL LET'S TRY "DIRECT LABELING“ • Color was only there to help us line-up a column with a category
24. 24 | October 2, 2013 | CONFIDENTIAL 2 DECIMAL PLACES ON $50,000 • Do you really care about the 6th and 7th significant figures ? • (You certainly can't estimate anything that small from this chart)
25. 25 | October 2, 2013 | CONFIDENTIAL DROP THE LEGEND (WE DON’T NEED IT) • A little more room to breath … • (and the horizontal text for categories is easier to read)
26. 26 | October 2, 2013 | CONFIDENTIAL BLACK IS SOOOO.. 1990’S • (Actually it can work for dashboards… but not if you want to print them)
27. 27 | October 2, 2013 | CONFIDENTIAL LET’S CONTINUE TO LIGHTEN “NON-DATA” INK • Grid-lines • Bold/large text • Plot-area border • Axis lines
28. 28 | October 2, 2013 | CONFIDENTIAL HOW ABOUT TRYING IT AS A BAR CHART ? • Category labels are easier to read • Sales values a little harder ?
29. 29 | October 2, 2013 | CONFIDENTIAL DO YOU REALLY NEED TO KNOW THE NUMBERS ? • (If numbers matters more than patterns, a table may be better for you) • This is a compromise to suit 2 audiences
30. 30 | October 2, 2013 | CONFIDENTIAL STILL WANT IT TO LOOK COOL ? • Carefully add a little interest – Numbers within the bar • (this is data so I have emphasized it) – Labels above the bar • Lot’s of room for longer descriptions • (don’t try this with 40 bars) – Left-align the title with the Plot-area – Pick a more modern font
31. 31 | October 2, 2013 | CONFIDENTIAL STILL WANT IT TO LOOK COOL ? • Too far?
32. 32 | October 2, 2013 | CONFIDENTIAL DATA LOOKS BETTER NAKED (BUT IT TAKES EFFORT TO LOOK GOOD NAKED).
33. 33 | October 2, 2013 | CONFIDENTIAL A REAL LIFE EXAMPLE Target/ Lumidata chart
34. 34 | October 2, 2013 | CONFIDENTIAL LUMIDATA / TARGET EXAMPLE
35. 35 | October 2, 2013 | CONFIDENTIAL AN ALTERNATIVE • Easy to read – No pie charts – No multi-color bar charts – No need for a legend – No need to scan across graphics to get what I need – We use relative position to estimate value (what we’re best at) ! • Limited non-data ink (no chart junk) • Light banding helps you stay within a line.
36. 36 | October 2, 2013 | CONFIDENTIAL ORCHESTRO RELEASE 8 REPORTS
37. 37 | October 2, 2013 | CONFIDENTIAL ORCHESTRO RELEASE 8 REPORTS • Orchestro Release 8 includes a number of standard report templates. – Designed to clear visualization guidelines – Have a clear purpose – No unnecessary “chart junk” – They just work.
38. 38 | October 2, 2013 | CONFIDENTIAL RELEASE 8 EXAMPLE - NEW ITEM TRACKER
39. 39 | October 2, 2013 | CONFIDENTIAL
40. 40 | October 2, 2013 | CONFIDENTIAL
41. 41 | October 2, 2013 | CONFIDENTIAL QUESTIONS ?