Bringing Data to Life - Making Charts That Don't Suck

Bringing Data to Life

aka

Making Charts That Don’t Suck

Dan SweetApril 2014

Agenda

• The Challenge

• The Power of Design

• Ways People are Weird

• Data Visualization Design Principles

• Data Visualization @ P&G

• Tools Available

• Case Studies

• Extreme Graph Makeover

Design is powerfulApple has outperformed P&G by 5000%

Workplace Challenges

• Communication• Influence without positional power• Effectively and persuasively share analysis

However, the bulk of the people we work with are human. Humans are emotional creatures of habit and don’t always listen to reason.

Role of Finance

• Rational objective analysis• Accurate• Impartial• Dispassionate

ASSUMPTION: Objective Reality Exists

Does it?

Deciding on having surgery…

90% chance of survival

10% chance of death

Will you have the surgery?

Problem with humans

• Action preferred over accuracy• Ambiguity is inherent in life• Ambiguity ≈ Risk• Risk Negative Emotions• Motivation: Pursuing Gains or Avoiding Losses• Avoiding Losses > Pursuing Gains

Result is a tendency to make decisions on feelings instead of knowledge

“Human Based Visual Communication” presentation by Dan Young – Corporate CMK

Much Information Processing is:

•Holistic•Low Involvement•Habitual•Affect/Emotion Driven•Driven by past experiences

“Human Based Visual Communication” presentation by Dan Young – Corporate CMK“Human Based Visual Communication” presentation by Dan Young – Corporate CMK

Brain has 2 “Modes” of Operation

System 1:FastIntuitiveEmotional

System 2: SlowerMore deliberativeMore logical

Cognitive Ease

3 x 26 x 5

10 x 10

Cognitive Strain

17 x 1346 x 18

137 x 14

Brain has 2 “Modes” of Operation

System 1:FastIntuitiveEmotional

System 2: SlowerMore deliberativeMore logical

Low Involvement Logic

Benefits of graphics that can be processed at this level:

• Fluent Processing Of Highly Accessible Information• Feelings of Familiarity• Approach Behavior

Key Question: Given the question and the broader communication context, is your graphic “message” intuitive?

“Human Based Visual Communication” presentation by Dan Young – Corporate CMK“Human Based Visual Communication” presentation by Dan Young – Corporate CMK

Tell a Story

• Integrate information presented• Create a more concrete and familiar context • Lead to increased fluency/ease of processing the

information• Create relevant emotions/affect• Help link to existing knowledge

Make your message more memorable and likely to impact behavior

“Human Based Visual Communication” presentation by Dan Young – Corporate CMK“Human Based Visual Communication” presentation by Dan Young – Corporate CMK

Design Principles

Data-Ink Ratio

UsefulPieCharts

Sorted Barplots > Pie Charts

2D vs. 3D

Why is 3D “harder”?

“Human Based Visual Communication” presentation by Dan Young – Corporate CMK

http://www.slideshare.net/janwillemtulp/data-visualization-5724069

http://www.slideshare.net/janwillemtulp/data-visualization-5724069

http://www.slideshare.net/janwillemtulp/data-visualization-5724069

http://www.slideshare.net/janwillemtulp/data-visualization-5724069

Accessibility

UsingColor

Application

Redesigned credit: www.perpetualedge.com

Review:Design Principles / Weird People

• People are odd – make it easy for them• Maximize data/ink ratio – clean design• If using color, make it meaningful• Consider avoiding red/green – accessibility• Highlight what is important – bold, italics, size,

shape, line type, etc.• Avoid pie charts• Avoid 3D

Business Sphere

Data Visualization Tools

• Excel• PowerPoint• Spotfire• Tableau• JMP• R with ggplot2

This is the part where I delete 25 slides of P&G-specific case studies and before and after

examples.

Extreme Graph Makeover

This is fun IRL, but the competition and anonymous group critique where we all apply our new found skills and then tear apart each other’s work doesn’t translate to Slideshare – sorry.

Hans Rosling – GapMinder

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbkSRLYSojo#t=0m29s

Credits

Cognitive psychology elements from a Dan Young (Corporate CMK) presentation titled “Human Based Visual Communication” presented at the 2011 Statistics Symposium.

Books written by Edward Tufte and Stephen Few

Stephen Few’s site: perceptualedge.comhttp://www.slideshare.net/janwillemtulp/data-visualization-5724069