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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