Juice Analytics

There is a funny list of awkward analogies by high school students that circles the Internet like a shark around a downed airman. There were some great ones in the list:

• She had a deep, throaty, genuine laugh, like that sound a dog makes just before it throws up.
• He fell for her like his heart was a mob informant, and she was the East River.
• The ballerina rose gracefully en Pointe and extended one slender leg behind her, like a dog at a fire hydrant.

A good analogy is priceless–it helps us understand the new by connecting it to the familiar. A bad analogy is like an empty tin can at the bottom of a well, it isn’t good to drink from.

Good data visualizations are like storytelling. Where does this analogy lie?

For practitioners of the craft, connecting our work to stories feels satisfying — it is a call to raise our standards and an opportunity to enhance the influence of our field. Stories evoke images of rapt audiences, dramatic arcs, and unexpected plot twists.

Unfortunately this analogy is a stretch. The truth is that many of the core elements of stories simply aren’t evident in data visualizations: characters, a plot, a three-act structure, a beginning and an end. Occasionally, the narrative flow of a story can be glimpsed in an infographic or dashboard.

At the same time, data visualizations have fundamental characteristics missing from traditional storytelling. Interactive data visualizations let the audience explore the information to find the insights that resonate with them. Visualizations should take shape based to a large extend on the underlying data. And as this data changes, the emphasis and message of the visualization is likely to change.

To be fair they aren’t entirely unrelated. One element that the two forms of communication share is the ability to build and resolve tension. Pose a problem, then deliver an insight that helps answer that problem.

Nevertheless, our community breezily equates visualization with storytelling. I was struck by the language used in Visual.ly’s recent post called From Data to Story: Dissecting a Well-Made Visualization. The author reviews a good visualization and discusses how it tells a simple story:

“This piece is particularly interesting because it tells a very simple story, yet the data itself is complex. Imagine the myriad ways that one could show the aggregated percent change for twenty different companies. The author of this visualization experimented with different views and arrived on the two that told the story most completely, most effortlessly.”

Ad Age’s Garrick Schmitt boldly states that “all of this data visualization is, of course, really just a new way to tell stories (or create experiences).”

We want to link our newest communication method to our oldest. The shoe doesn’t fit.

Ultimately, communicating with data isn’t about telling a specific story, but rather starting a guided conversation. It is more a Choose Your Own Adventure book, the color commentary of a basketball game, or the narrative structure of Call of Duty 3. It is more dialogue with the viewer’s understanding than monologue, and must be more influenced by the content than the unfettered creation of a storyteller.

If you’re in or around Nashville and hear an unfamiliar voice break out in song, it might just be one of our Juicers inspired by a trip through Music City.

We’ll be in Nashville, Tennessee on March 1 and 2, 2012, and we would enjoy catching up with you while we’re there. There’s a lot to discuss, from industry news to the latest here at Juice, and we look forward to hearing about what’s going on in your corner of the data viz world.

If you’ll be in the Nashville area and would like to connect with us, leave us a comment or send an email to info@juiceanalytics.com.

(And, if you can carry a tune, all the better.)

Clear bright white and nostalgic colored string lights adorn otherwise commonplace trees and shrubbery on nearly every block this time of year. Neighborhoods and shopping centers look like beautiful storybook villages as we pass, enjoying our commutes a little bit more in spite of the holiday traffic.

On my drive home last night, the thought occurred to me that data is a lot like holiday lights. When organized in an attractive and appealing dashboard design, the power of data is enhanced and can be even more powerful and meaningful. Data, when displayed in a striking new way can be more intriguing to us, and as a result, we’re more likely to engage with it. Perhaps we would have missed the very same data had it been organized and presented in a less pleasing fashion.

By presenting data in a way in which our psyche is predisposed to receive it, we allow our audience to see and hear the story that we have to share, and then help them gain clarity and understanding around the data. It is then that we have their attention and the opportunity to make a point, deliver a pitch, close a sale or ask them to make a decision.

Sharing information in a context in which people are open and most receptive to receiving it is intuitive. It’s human nature to appreciate attractive things, especially pretty lights, to give and receive beautifully and thoughtfully wrapped packages and to look forward to the promise of a brand new year.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from the Juice Team!

Slice Reporting Software

Contact us to get a demo of Slice, our innovative solution for creating and sharing beautiful reports and dashboards.

Tis the season of indulgence. Sometimes it is indulgence without any semblance of restraint. Case in point, the “Cherpumple” — a combination pumpkin, apple, and cherry pie framed in icing.

When it comes to business dashboards, the gauge chart is often a case of indulgence without restraint. It can be equal parts waste of valuable pixels, low information, and visually deceptive. It would be a lot smarter to use a bullet chart — but who wants to pick the the fruit plate for desert?

Gauges have undeniable appeal to dashboard designers everywhere. Perhaps it is the “skeuomorphism” of a gauge chart. That is, it borrows from the look of something we are familiar with as a way to make us feel comfortable or understand its purpose.

In the past, I’ve fought the good fight against these charts. Now I’m resigned to the fact that eradication is impossible. If that’s true, can we at least find some ways to make them better through design? Tone down the brilliant sheen and high-contrast colors; turn up the information conveyed.

First we can start by making them look better. Web designer Christian Annyas shared a beautiful gallery of Chevrolet speedometer designs across the years. Here are a couple of my favorites:

Christian even offers a decent argument for gauges over simply showing a value:

“It’s easy for a driver to get used to a needle that rises and passes numbers that are located on fixed positions. A quick glance is all it takes to see and understand the value it represents.”

Let’s take one of those designs, overlay a few necessary data elements, and see if we can create something worth looking at.

1. Start with an classy Chevrolet design that lays out so as not to take up too much valuable vertical space
2. Add subtle indicator of good and bad zones with green and red dots
3. Show the current value with a bold label
4. Display distribution of recent history to communicate how the value has changed

While this chart is still far from efficient in its data-to-ink ratio, at least it communicates the small amount of information effectively. Any ideas for how to make it better?

Using proper dashboard design techniques is a topic that struck a chord when we released our white paper series
“A Guide to Creating Dashboards People Love to Use” a few years ago, and still seems to resonate as people regularly download the content from the Juice Analytics website, and we receive ongoing requests to speak around these key principles.

Since we can all use a little calibration every once in a while to stay in tune, we thought we’d post it again, with a reminder that you can access this oldie but goody, along with other materials on the Juice Analytics resources page anytime — and that all of these materials are available to you gratis.

Should you have a friend, colleague or know someone who could benefit from a little dashboard design “religion”, feel free to let them know where you found yours.

Slice Reporting Software

Contact us to get a demo of Slice, our innovative solution for creating and sharing beautiful reports and dashboards.

Do you have your child’s drawing on the wall of your cube, office or maybe at home on the fridge? Can you remember visualizing the world that simply?  When was the last time you looked at anything quite that way? What if you did?

Well, we did just that. And, our effort resulted in a video to share with people about what we do here at Juice.  We hope you like it.

(P.S. Thank your kid for the artwork covering that stain on your wall — and for the great analogy.)

There’s a crispness in the air, the leaves are turning, and a restlessness has surfaced that is unmistakable.  Road trip!

November 1 & 2, Juice is going to be in Boston.  So, if you’ll be in town and you’d like to meet up, reach out and let us know.  Or if you happen to know someone in the Boston area who is into data visualization — or should be — take this opportunity to reach out to them.  Just “Say Hello to Someone From Massachusetts” and invite them to ping us.

There’s a lot to catch up on from industry news to the latest here at Juice, and we look forward to hearing about what’s going on in your corner of the data viz world.

If you’ll be in the Boston area and would like to connect with us, leave us a comment or send an email to info@juiceanalytics.com.

“Cheers!”

If you’ve ever tried to get anywhere in Atlanta at 5:30 p.m. on a Thursday, you’re painfully aware of the seemingly perpetual problem we have with traffic.  Last year, Atlanta was ranked as the 4th worst city for commuters.

Atlanta Journal-Constitution Atlanta Map:

That’s why Juice teamed up with the Atlanta Journal-Constitution(AJC) to help metro Atlantans better understand and visualize the magnitude of the initiative which encompasses projects across a 10-county region at a proposed cost of $6.14 billion. If voters approve the new transportation referendum in Summer 2012, it will be the biggest single transportation effort in the region in over 40 years. The referendum would add an extra one percent multi-county regional sales tax to fund the mammoth initiative over a 10-year period.

Juice designed a detailed map to accompany the AJC’s three-page cover story in order to help metro Atlantans better understand and visualize the magnitude of the initiative. The map provides readers with a bird’s eye view of the 118 proposed projects on the current draft of the referendum. The alpha-numeric coordinates along the “x” and “y” axis help readers find their bearings, while the color and pattern-coded keys help them easily identify degrees of traffic congestion and decipher roadway projects from transit projects, bike and pedestrian projects from aviation projects.

We are thrilled to have the opportunity to contribute to our community to do what we can to help solve one of the region’s key challenges when it comes to growth, economy, and environment. We’re looking forward to seeing how this story plays out and are hopeful that visualizations such as this one will help voters and decision makers alike consume, process the massive amounts of data driving this effort, and act.

Unfortunately, the AJC only ran the map and accompanying story in the subscriber edition of the paper, so I’m not able to share a link.

Late nights, knashing of teeth, last minute revisions, and all of that pressure.  And that was just us preparing to launch the contest.

To all of you who submitted entries for the Strata Vizathlon Visualization Contest, we thank each and every one of you, and appreciate your tremendous efforts.

Along with the team at O’Reilly Media, we are proud to announce the winners of the 2011 Strata Vizathlon Contest.

Best in Show:

Eating Constraints by Dane Summers (submitted in “Dig In” Category)

Category Winner: Delicious Storylines

Do You Want to Eat This by Team Data Distillery (Anita Lillie, Kris Chan and Romy Misra)

Category Winners: Dig In

Interactive Food Analysis by Josh Tapley

Food Facts Exploration by Kyle Foreman

The “Best in Show” winner, Dane Summers, will be announced at the O’Reilly Strata NY Summit in New York, NY September 20 or 21, 2011.

Congratulations again to our winners, and thank you to everyone who participated. You can see all the entries at the Strata Vizathlon website.

P.S. Tickets are still available for the O’Reilly Strata NY Conference. You can receive a 30% discount if you register using the discount code “JUICE” on the registration page. (Note: The discount has increased to 30% since the original blog post.)

Telling stories with data. It is an increasingly common business intelligence refrain–and it may well be part of your job description. If it is, why not tap into the time-tested lessons of those who tell stories with words?  Just as words are the basic unit of written stories, visualization techniques (charts, visualizations, colors, font sizes, sparklines, etc.) are the tools we have when telling data stories. No matter the form, authors will agonize about choosing the right units of expression, finding a balance between being concise and being comprehensive, simplicity and sophistication.

On questions of vocabulary and style in written communication, there seems to be agreement about the pursuit of simplicity and ensuring that  the message, not the words, take center stage. Below are three common writing guidelines, and what they mean for your data communication choices.

1. Smaller, simpler words

“The finest language is mostly made up of simple unimposing words.” — George Eliot

“Don’t use words too big for the subject. Don’t say ‘infinitely’ when you mean ‘very’; otherwise you’ll have no word left when you want to talk about something really infinite.” — C.S. Lewis

My experience is that the simplest visualization  techniques (bar, line, table, single number, even pie) are effective for 80% of data communication. Like simple words, you can be assured that your audience will quickly understand what you mean. Refrain from advanced visualizations like treemaps and animated bubble charts but for the special situations where the breadth and nuance of your data requires more visual sophistication.

Nevertheless, there is value in knowing what can be done in data visualization. Exposing yourself to advanced visualization techniques (start here: Infosthetic, Flowing Data, New York Times visualizations) offers similar benefits to having a large vocabulary.

2. Too many words is a symptom of poor understanding

“If you can’t explain something simply, you don’t understand it well.” — Albert Einstein

“A man who uses a great many words to express his meaning is like a bad marksman who instead of aiming a single stone at an object takes up a handful and throws at it in hopes he may hit.” — Samuel Johnson

Most people don’t really want to hear you think out loud. In data presentation, it’s tempting to think out loud by showing all the data in every conceivable way.  We’ve all been a recipient of that awful 80-page PowerPoint report with seemly infinite variations on the same data.

Form an opinion. Lay it out there. Don’t wander around – or worse, allow your audience to wander too much off the path. Here’s a favorite example from the New York Times. This analytical tool knows exactly what it wants to accomplish and gets to the point immediately.

3. Words are for communication, not show

“Words in prose ought to express the intended meaning; if they attract attention to themselves, it is a fault; in the very best styles you read page after page without noticing the medium.” — Samuel Taylor Coleridge

“Any one who wishes to become a good writer should endeavour, before he allows himself to be tempted by the more showy qualities, to be direct, simple, brief, vigorous, and lucid.” — H.W. Fowler

It’s not about the data or the visualization; it’s about the message you are trying to communicate.  This is not simply a question of efficient communication; it is also a question of perception. When you use unnecessarily complex visualizations, you draw attention to the wrong things. Here’s a good example of a chart that is more about the chart than the data: