Dashboards, Scorecards & Visualization

A dashboard cannot help you communicate your data effectively if you don’t know how to build it. Having a dashboard will not make you data-driven, having a useful dashboard will. A useful dashboard is the one which is understood just by having a glance at it. There are 5 stages to make a useful dashboard:

Stage 1: Curiosity
Identifying the need for being data-driven but not what has to be done to become data-driven.

Stage 2: Play
Building your first dashboard and analyzing data. However, you haven’t identified the right business tools and processes.

Stage 3: Clutter
Manipulating the data by sharing the dashboard with colleagues and discussing with them. Business metrics are to be identified to reach business goals.

Stage 4: Clean Up
Deciding business goals and metrics that align to achieve the goals. The ownership of metric is not yet identified.

Stage 5: Focus
Understanding what data is driving the business and what can be done to achieve the goals. Being data-driven.

Dashboards are never static, they change as your business goals change.

References:

 

1. Dividing the data: Hidden insights are obtained when your data is segmented more. The more you segment your data, the better insights you obtain. In the video, the story of African sub-Saharan region having the lowest GDP vs Child Survival rate is completely different when the data is segmented country wise for that region. We realize that after segmentation, countries like Mauritius has a much higher ratio (than average) as compared to other countries in the same region.
2. Treating each data point separately: Each data point can be associated with a different problem and after carefully analyzing the data point, you can provide solutions accordingly. For e.g. the same solution can’t be applied to the poorest of Nigeria v/s the richest of South Africa.
3. Usage of Idioms: The idiom you use for visualization should immediately provide you the information that you are trying to convey and what your chart is measuring.
4. Checking your legibility: Run it by someone who has never seen your visualization, and ask them to tell you what the chart is supposed to be illustrating. The longer they take, the worse you’ve done.

Reference: https://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_shows_the_best_stats_you_ve_ever_seen

http://online-behavior.com/analytics/effective-data-visualization

 

 

 

 

In the field of analytics and data visualization, it is important to understand the type and meaning of the data we are dealing with, apart from understanding the data itself. Each data set will contain different type of data-statistical, numerical, informative data, demographics, trends, sales data etc. As data/business analysts and decision makers we are confronted with numerous types of data sets and it becomes essential to use an info graphic and visualization that would best depict them. Not only should our info graphics convey the message clear, it should be done in a manner the end party can assimilate it easily. Hence, it becomes important to understand which kind of tool/technology we can use to best visualize the kind of data we have in hand. There are thousands of software and online tools at our dispense, yet we must know which one is justifiable to use in which situation. I wrote this blog after I observed an online survey of tools and technologies that people suggested to use with a kind of data.

Data: Businesses, academics, statistical data, market data based on industry, topic, or country.
Tool/Technology: Statista
Pricing: Free, Premium at 49$/month

Data: Popular topics, online trends, and current events.
Tool/Technology: Google Trends
Pricing: Free

Data: Online tables, charts, and graphs.
Tool/Technology: Zanran
Pricing: Free

Data: Public opinion, social issues, and demographics in the U.S. and worldwide.
Tool/Technology: Pew Research Center
Pricing: Free

Data: Loads of infographics with customization
Tool/technology: Piktochart
Pricing: Lite $15/month & Pro $29/month.

Data: Animated graphics and charts
Tool/technology: Zingchart
Pricing: One-time fees range from $199 (Website) to $9,999 (Enterprise).

“Data may not contain the answer. The coordination of some data and an aching desire for an answer will not ensure that a reasonable one can be extracted from a given body of data.” While Tukey (1915-2000)

In order to build a successful interactive data visualization, the graph should have these properties: the Novice User, Driving Processes, Data must tell a Story, Data Correlation, Prescriptions: “What should happen next?” 

To verify those opinions I choose one of the most famous interactive data visualization introduced by Hans Rosling:

http://www.gapminder.org/tools/#_state_time_value=2015;&marker_select@;&opacitySelectDim=0.00;;&chart-type=bubbles

The Novice User: the interactive visualization is ordered by the time and country. it is very easy for novice user to play with, and obviously we can see overall the life expectancy is increasing. Also, the difference between countries and continent is showed clearly.

Driving Processes: The visualization use animation to show the audience how the population changes years from years.

Data Must Tell A Story: Hans Rosling even make a 4-minutes video for the story part. Pease check the reference.

Data Correlation: The user can immediately know not only of hot spots that require attention, but also effortlessly find trends based on the dynamic relationship.

Prescription: What should happen next?

Please see the youtube down below, there is an overall trend at the end of the video.

Reference:

Hans Rosling’s 200 Countries, 200 Years, 4 Minutes – The Joy of Stats

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbkSRLYSojo

Life expectancy vs Income

http://www.gapminder.org/tools/#_state_time_value=2015;&marker_select@;&opacitySelectDim=0.00;;&chart-type=bubbles

Five Key Properties of Interactive Data Visualization

http://www.forbes.com/sites/benkerschberg/2014/04/30/five-key-properties-of-interactive-data-visualization/#28008b0a44eb

Gun Deaths in America is not a new phenomenon. These events are still prevalent in the American states. Many laws and policies have tried to reduce the number of gun killings but a majority of these attempts have failed this country. The project of Five Thirty Eight has explored multiple datasets collected by Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Multiple Cause of Death database, which is derived from death certificates from all 50 states and the District of Columbia and is widely considered the most comprehensive estimate of firearm deaths. This project has an interactive graph showcasing more than 33,000 annual deaths in the country.

The categories covered are as follows:

1) suicides among middle-aged men

2) homicides of young black man

3) accidental deaths

The visualization shows that the suicide rate is nearly 44 per 100,000, men in the middle-age category and geographical group have more than three times the risk of dying by suicide than the national average. For example, In Wyoming, approximately 80 percent of suicides are men; a quarter is men ages 45-64.

The visualization of the homicide category includes deaths by assault and shootings by police officers. The age group of the people in this category was in the range of 15-34. The visualizations also show the mass shootings and accidental killings by police officers during terrorist shootings. Each visualization gives us a rough idea about the ratio or number of killings in various states. Such visualizations are important to make people realize and bring the number down

 

Reference: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/gun-deaths/

1. 1. Tell the “why” and “how”

   Use a descriptive chart title and annotation that not only describe what is being measured rather also why the reader should care and how to read the chart. This will avoid misinterpretations and save time for the chart viewers.

   Example:

   Original title: MSIS degree

   Improved title with note: MSIS degree placement rate. Note: 86% of the MSIS graduates had job placements, which is the highest placement rate when compared to other programs.

   2. Highlight what’s important, tell one story

   Although it is possible to tell 100 of story using a single line chart, it makes much sense to keep the focus on just one story.

   Example: Consider this image, There are 5 products in the chart, and it is not clear what product is the story focusing on. Therefore we must highlight the line that we are focusing on to tell that particular story and keep the rest in context in the background.

   3. Do not use 3D charts

   Studies show that 3D effect reduce comprehension. The extra dimension can hide the visibility of the data, and therefore unable to understand the pattern in data.

   Example: consider this 3D effect image, as we see from the chart, most of the data are hidden, and hence are not easily understandable.

   reference: http://www.eea.europa.eu/data-and-maps/daviz/learn-more/chart-dos-and-donts#toc-0

    

Interactive Visualization enables the display and intuitive understanding of multidimensional data provides a variety of visualization chart types and enables users to accomplish traditional data exploration tasks by making charts interactive. Interactive Visualization implies the use of heat maps, geographic maps, link charts, and a broad spectrum of special purpose visualizations that surround processes that are inextricably linked to an underlying analytics.

Any enterprise at some points starts trending contextual data for making decisions affecting their operations on daily basis. With this trending, the business question which needs to be answered becomes the focus.A visual representation can be done in many ways but here the context matters for better understanding and better decision-making which is provided by Interactive Visualization. Interactive Visualization begins with a data presentation architecture that seeks to identify, locate, manipulate, format, and present data in such a way as to communicate its meaning optimally.

• 5 Key Properties of Interactive Visualization –

1. The Novice User – Even the naive users should be able to examine the data and find all the patterns, correlations and navigate through the visualization easily.
2. Driving Processes – The processes must be well defined. Phase completion should be visually shown and should be real-time.
3. Data Must Tell a Story – Data must tell a story that instantly relates the performance of a business and its assets. The users should be able to select data and change perspective for a better result.
4. Data Correlation – The trends which can be dynamically formed between multiple datasets should be easily found.
5. Prescriptions – The users must be provided with at least some prescriptive analysis. They must also be prompted with the steps to follow to get the desired result.

 

Ref : http://www.forbes.com/sites/benkerschberg/2014/04/30/five-key-properties-of-interactive-data-visualization/#2b128fd744eb

Key Performance Indicators, better known as KPIs are measurements made at certain intervals(weekly, monthly, quarterly, yearly and so on) which provides the business owners an indication of the relative health of the business. Even though it is imperative to consistently measure KPIs in any flourishing business, most small scale business owners ignore it citing the practical difficulty in measuring the same.

Parallels can be drawn between KPIs in business to KPIs in the health sector. It is not just a single instance(in most cases) that triggers concern and treatment from a doctor, but a series of suspicious/abnormal results. Similarly, KPIs in business takes more meaning when the measurements are taken repeatedly and over a period of time.

In business, KPIs are of two categories – Leading and lagging. As the name suggests, leading indicators provide the owners with a glance into the future while lagging indicators are all about the results of previous actions/policies. Leading indicators are useful in predicting the general direction of the business and as such, can be used to alter/continue the course of action depending on the predicted outcome. On the other hand, lagging indicators provide an assessment of the direction in which the business moved in the given period of time.

While useful in its own right, the true potential of KPIs is unlocked when the best of both worlds are combined. For example, a businessman can keep a target revenue for the end of the month and work on achieving it. Leading KPIs can be utilized to assess the progress and depending on the situation, changes can be made if required to achieve the target.

While measuring KPIs, one needs to be prudent in selecting the necessary indicators. Great care must be exerted in the selection of the variables since an increase in number or a seemingly important, but inutile variable could potentially confound the measurements. Research by Drs. Kaplan and Norton came up with a solution for this in the form of their Balance Scorecard, which emphasizes focus on four key areas – Financial, Customer, Internal Business Process, and Innovation and Learning. This framework is meant to align the goals of a business with the strategy and long-term vision.

Source : http://www.business2community.com/small-business/what-are-kpis-and-how-do-you-use-them-01641939#8VF8KMOItt9HgRGI.97

Earlier this week, Hans Rosling a pioneer and one of the leading members in the visualization domain passed away. Hans gave a TED talk in February 2006 and while Hans goes on to talk about how there is a need for the public and private statistical data to be made available to people that need it, the most important take away that I got from his presentation was that society as a whole is more interested in looking at the data from the top most level. We see the world as us against everyone else and countries as first world and third world. People in society never really look and try to understand the data as what it really is about, but instead sees it as what it is shown to us. For example, Hans does a comparison between GBP of countries in the world vs the Child Survival rate. The sub-Saharan region of Africa has the lowest GDP vs Child Survival rates in his data set. If you were to look into the data then you would notice that while the average value is the lowest, the countries that are part of the sub-Saharan region is actually evenly spaced out. Mauritius actually has better statistical value than the average of Latin America. No one would know to look at Mauritius to see why their GBP is so high in the area, but instead they would look and see that the sub-Saharan region has one of the lowest GBP vs Child Survival rates in the world.

Reference: https://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_shows_the_best_stats_you_ve_ever_seen

United Nations maintains an interactive dashboard containing visualizations about world population and related parameters.

The things that I liked about the dashboard are:

• The back/return button at the top left corner of the map is very intuitive since they follow common application norms, such as undo/return on Microsoft applications.
• The icons used for fertility are super likable!

The things I did not like about this dashboard are as follows:

• The color mark used in the map tells which countries have higher and lower population without giving a numeric range to it. Worse yet, even when you hover on a country, there is no tooltip to mention the current population. Ideally, when you think about world population, we would want to know the growth rate for each country. This is probably the second most important data point (first being the current population) when you talk about the population domain. Both these data points are available in the additional parameter section to the user if he/she clicks on a country/region.
• There are four text filters at the bottom of the map, which partitions the world based on development index. When the user clicks on any one of these, the additional parameters get populated for the filter region selected. I would have liked the countries which fall under each of these indexes to be highlighted in the map when each of the filters were clicked. This would have helped the user to understand which countries are falling under them.
• When you click on a country, the map zooms in and its data points are presented in the additional parameter section. I don’t see the zoom feature fulfilling any purpose.
• The tooltips for “Maternal and newborn health” visualization is incorrect and there is no tooltip for “Sexual and reproductive health”.

References:

http://www.unfpa.org/world-population-dashboard