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BEST PRACTICES FOR VISUALISING
DATA AND BUILDING
DASHBOARDS
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OBJECTIVES• Why do we visualise data?• What is pre-attentive processing and why is it
important?• Data-Ink Ratios• Duck-duck-pie chart
o Table or chart?o Types of categorical scaleso Types of chartso 1D-2D-3Do Types of relationshipso Matchmaker, Matchmakero Would you like some context with that?
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OBJECTIVES (cont)• Human Nature
o Pre-Attentive vs cognitive processingo Form, colour, positiono Colour selection
• Dashboardso What is a dashboard?o Zoning issueso Context, context, contexto Important ruleso Special charts
• Further reading and study
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Why visualise data?
Mar
-14
May
-14Ju
l-14
Sep-1
4
Nov-14
05
101520253035
Insurance RSAHealth Property
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Pre-attentive processing
• The part of the brain that takes input from the eyes and summarises it in a way that makes it more sense to us.
• It can speed up the time it takes us to interpret a piece of information
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Pre-attentive processing
Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec
1234
1324
1254
1345
1367
1390
1465
1564
1654
1678
1768
1876
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Pre-attentive processing
• The part of the brain that takes input from the eyes and summarises it in a way that makes it more sense to us.
• It can speed up the time it takes us to interpret a piece of information
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Pre-attentive processing
Jan Feb Mar Apr
May Ju
n Jul
Aug Sep
OctNov Dec
10001100120013001400150016001700180019002000
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Pre-attentive processing
• The part of the brain that takes input from the eyes and summarises it in a way that makes it more sense to us.
• It can speed up the time it takes us to interpret a piece of information
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Data-Ink Ratios• The ratio of data-ink to non-data ink• Data ink is anything that contributes to the story
of the data• Non-data ink is anything that doesn’t directly add
to the data story• Reduce non-data ink so the data-ink stands out
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Jan FebMarAprMayJun Jul AugSep OctNovDec10001100120013001400150016001700180019002000
12341324
1254134513671390
14651564
165416781768
1876
Profit over the last 12mths for all business lines
Profit
Months
Dol
lars
of P
rofit
(A
UD
)
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Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec10001100120013001400150016001700180019002000
Profit last 12mths for all business lines (AUD)
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Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec10001100120013001400150016001700180019002000
Profit last 12mths for all business lines (AUD)
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Duck-Duck-Pie ChartSales
1st Qtr2nd Qtr3rd Qtr4th Qtr
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Table or Chart• Use a table if:
o You want to be able to find individual values;o You want to compare individual values;o You need a high level of precision in your data;o You have multiple units of measure to show;o You want to show details and summaries together.
• Use a chart if:o You are looking for patterns in the data;o You have a large amount of data to show in a small space;o You are looking for exceptions within the data;o Any scenario that doesn’t fall under table above!
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Types of Categorical Scales
• A chart or table will consist of Quantitative values (measures) and Categorical labels (dimensions)
• Categorical labels can be classified as:o Nominal
o Ordinal
o Interval
Sales IT Operations
0-19 20-39 40-59 60-79 79+
1st 2nd 3rd 4th 5th
Apr May Jun Jul Aug
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Types of Charts
Image taken from “Show me the Numbers” course notes by Stephen Few
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1D-2D-3D
Parts Service Cleaning RSA0
0.51
1.52
2.53
3.54
4.55
PartsServiceCleaningRSA
PartsServiceCleaningRSA
Parts Service Cleaning RSA
00.5
11.5
22.5
33.5
44.5
5
Q1Q2
Q3
Q1 Q2 Q3
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Introducing Small Multiples
Q1 Q2 Q30
1
2
3
4
5
Parts
Q1 Q2 Q30
1
2
3
4
5
Service
Q1 Q2 Q30
1
2
3
4
5
Cleaning
Q1 Q2 Q30
1
2
3
4
5
RSA
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Types of Relationships• Time-Series• Ranking• Part-to-whole• Deviation• Distribution• Correlation• Geospatial• Nominal comparison
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Matching them upPoints Bars Lines Scatter Map
Nominal Comparison ● ●
Time Series ●Ranking ●Part-to-whole ●Deviation ● ●Distribution ●Correlation ●Geospatial ●
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Would like context with that?
• Always provide some context for your data• Context gives you clues as to what to do with the
data next.
Profit: $345,000
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HumanNature
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Pre-Attentive vs Cognitive Processing
• Pre-attentive = our automatic interpretation of what we are seeing. Quick and powerful. Low energy.
• Cognitive = when we concentrate on interpreting what we are seeing. Slow and methodical. High energy.
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Form, Colour, PositionColourForm
Length Width
Orientation| | | | | || | | \ | || | | | | |
Shape| | | | ▪ || | | | | || | | | | |
Enclosure| | | | | || | | | | || | | | | |
Size● ● ● ● ● ●●●● ● ● ●● ● ● ● ● ●
Hue● ● ● ● ● ●● ● ● ● ● ●● ● ● ● ● ●
Intensity● ● ● ● ● ●● ● ● ● ● ●● ● ● ● ● ●
Position
2D Position
● ● ● ● ●
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Colour Selection• Use softer colours
rather than fully saturated ones
• Try to use all one colour and restrict colour changes to highlights
• Varying the intensity of a colour can allow you to differentiate without drawing attention
• Don’t use red and green together!
YES
NO
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Dashboards“A visual display of the most important information needed to achieve one or
more objectives that has been consolidated on a single computer screen so it can be monitored and
understood at a glance.”- Stephen Few
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Zoning Issues
Important Neither important nor unimportant
Neither important nor unimportant Not important
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Context!!
• Every item should have context• Context drives what action is to be taken• A dashboard without context is useless
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Special Charts
• All the charts we’ve seen so far can be used but there are some special ones
• The need to fit lots of information into one screen means these charts that show lots of data and context in a compact form are important to the dashboard designer
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Bullet Graph• Shows the current value relative to a contextual
value (e.g. a target or previous value;• Highly flexible;• Banding can be used to show degree of good or
bad
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Sparkline• Like a line chart but smaller;• No axes• Used to show changes over time – patterns and or
magnitudes
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Good Dashboard Example
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Further Reading• www.perceptualedge.com – Stephen Few’s blog (I
particularly recommend checking out “Bricks”
• Dashboard and Visual Design books in the BI Library
• http://stephanieevergreen.com/easy-bullet-charts-in-excel/ - simple bullet style charts in Excel cells
• http://www.slideshare.net/jschwabish/bullet-charttutorial - how to create a bullet chart in Excel