Week 6: Business Reporting, Visual Analytics & Dashboards (Part 2) & Story Telling
Visual perception in Pre-attentive Processing
Form
Position
Color
Motion
Hue
Intensity
Orientation
Line length
Line width
Flicker
2-D Location
Added marks
Size
Enclosure
Shape
Gestalt Principles of Visual Perception
Principle of Enclosure
Principle of Closure
Principle of Similarity
Principle of Continuity
Principle of Proximity
Principle of Connection
Dashboard design considerations
Reduce the non-data pixels
Enhance the data pixels
Eliminate all unnecessary non-data pixels
De-emphasize and regularize the non-data pixels that remain
Eliminate all unnecessary data pixels
Highlight the most important data pixels that remain
Unnecessary borders around sections of data fragment the display
Avoid complete borders when a single set of axes would adequately define the space
Eliminate graphics that provide nothing but decoration
Unneccesary fill colors to separate sections of the display are distracting
Instructions take up valuable space. Hence, they can be displayed only when needed through a separate screen or pop-up menu
Navigational controls should not take up more space than the visual displays
Gradients of fill color both on the bars and background add distracting non-data pixels
Grid lines in graphs are not useful
Axis lines and gridlines can be useful but should be muted
3D should be avoided when the added dimension of depth doesn't represent actual data
Removing less relevant data
Condensing data through: Summaries, Exception
Multi-foci displays
Information that is always important can be emphasized using static means
Information that is only important at the moment requires a dynamic means of emphasis
Layout of dashboard should not change dynamically
Different regions of a dashboard has different degrees of visual emphasis
Story Telling
Definition: A fact-based story has to be factual. detailed-orientated and data-driven but not overwhelming the audience with data and facts without context
5 steps to creating a good story
Step 3: Be visual
Step 4: Making it easy for your audience and you
Step 2: Be authentic
Step 5: Invite and direct discussion
Step 1: Think of your analysis as a story
Why?
Interactive: people put themselves into stories
Support an arguement
Give vision to what the future look like
See the whole where there are disparate parts
Make sense and order of the data
What makes a good story?
Challenge is believable
Hurdles to overcome
Involves characters
Outcome or prognosis is clear