Paradox of Choice

–Pooja Kotian

Excellence is never an accident. It is always the result of high intention, sincere effort, and intelligent execution; it represents the wise choice of many alternatives – choice, not chance, determines your destiny.

-Aristotle

In today’s world, options are not something we lack. Years of research and ever growing technology have given us the luxury of doing complex things in just a few clicks. The same applies to data visualization, multiple tools have been built to help us create charts which were a tedious task in earlier times. But is more actually less? Lets take the below figure as an example to further discuss this:

 

 

The above chart uses the dual-axis combo feature that tableau provides.Tableau makes data visualisation a cake walk. It provides many features making it easy for users to build charts , graphs, etc. But making the right choice is the key.

What is interesting about the chart is how it clearly distinguishes its data. Reading into the chart will tell you what it’s trying to tell you. It answers the two of the main description question : What (furniture, office supplies, Technology) and When (year 2011 to 2014) and explains how much sales were or discounts given for those products over time. However, is this the right choice of presenting the data?

While the graph tells us quite a bit, some pieces still remain unknown leaving the viewer puzzled. It fails to answer us ‘Who'(which company) and ‘Where'(location). All we can say is that the company sales were x dollars in a particular year and discount percent in that year was y%. Also the time axis seems repetitive, simply using different colours for different products would make it simple and precise.

There are many more ways of representing the data in a more effective manner. But what to choose will always remain the question. When we have technology by our side we often tend over complicate stuff. In the above example, a simple method of having two graphs (one for sales and one for discount) side by side would do the trick.

In conclusion, I would like to say that there may be multiple solutions to a data visualisation but what we choose must serve the purpose in the most effective way. The data visualisation must be truthful and functional while being beautiful and insightful and most importantly be enlightening. The audience must be the key factor of our decision making process.