ENGAGED STORYTELLING WITH INFORMATION VISUALIZATION

The future of business intelligenceDATA VISUALIZATION

Prof. Kristen Sosulski@sosulski ks123@nyu.edu

DATA VISUALIZATIONA medium for data exploration, decision making, understanding, and storytelling

Kristen SosulskiThe future of business intelligence: Data VisualizationHow can data visualization be used as a platform to reveal intelligent insights and help business analysts make timely decisions? In this talk, Kristen Sosulski will discuss the opportunities for personalized, location aware, context relevant, and platform independent information visualizations as a toolkit for business analysts.

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WHY IS DATA VISUALIZATION SO POPULAR?

Visual communication is an essential skill for our business leaders. What is driving this need?Why are classes in DV and BI overbooke?2

DATA is the reason for this shift in emphasis.

Visual communication is an essential skill for our business leaders. What is driving this need?3

We are living in the era of big data.

All of a sudden you have thousands of customers feeding data into your computers every minute

You have more information than ever before. Data sets that are too large and complex that they become awkward or impossible to work with using database management tools.

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Think about the data you share and generate in a single day

Interactive Q & ASearching: Google/Bing/Yahoo Searches

Browsing: Clickstream/Page views/Web transactions

Communicating: Email, texts, phone callsMobile phone/GPS/Location data, facebook shares

Shopping: CRM transactions, RFID, Bar Code Scanner Data

Testing and Monitoring: Real-time machinery diagnostics/engines/equipment

Trading: Stock market transactions

Connecting: Twitter updates and Facebook posts

Contributing: Wikipedia edits, blog posts, comments, trip advisor, yelp

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Weve excelled at generating and even collecting data.

---Nathan Yau012

Now, what do we do with it?

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The data must become easier to understand and act upon.

In a data 9

How do we get there?

There comes a time when you have to talk to other people. Its communicating to a greater audience.

Who are you designing for?What types of decisions is your user/audience making?Its about communicating your analysis to others.

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We can do this through data visualization.

VISUAL COMMUNICATIONis an essential skill for all managers -Scott Berinato, 2016

Visual communication is an essential skill for our business leaders. What is driving this need?13

Bellinger, G., Castro, D., & Mills, A., 2004; Ackoff, 1989

The affordances of the medium enable us to:

PRESENT HISTORY

THE AFFORDANCES OF VISUALIZATION

DATA VISUALIZATIONA medium for data exploration, decision making, understanding, and storytelling

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REVEAL INTELLIGENT INSIGHTS ABOUTTHE PAST

DATA VISUALIZATIONA medium for data exploration, decision making, understanding, and storytelling

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DESCRIBE WHAT IS HAPPENING NOW

DATA VISUALIZATIONA medium for data exploration, decision making, understanding, and storytelling

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FOSTER TIMELY DECISION MAKING ABOUT THE PRESENT

DATA VISUALIZATIONA medium for data exploration, decision making, understanding, and storytelling

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PREDICT BEHAVIORS, PATTERNS, & TRENDS ABOUT THE FUTURE

DATA VISUALIZATIONA medium for data exploration, decision making, understanding, and storytelling

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AN INTERFACE Location-aware analysis Person-centered analysis Context-relevant analysis

DATA VISUALIZATIONA medium for data exploration, decision making, understanding, and storytelling

http://s3.amazonaws.com/academia.edu.documents/32970305/FROM_BIG_DATA_TO_BIG_IMPACT.pdf?AWSAccessKeyId=AKIAJ56TQJRTWSMTNPEA&Expires=1475441759&Signature=uMNLF3m94IuiU4XTava3QOj3DMA%3D&response-content-disposition=inline%3B%20filename%3DSPECIAL_ISSUE_BUSINESS_INTELLIGENCE_RESE.pdf21

BUT WE NEED TO DO IT EFFICIENTLY AND EFFECTIVELY

DATA VISUALIZATIONA medium for data exploration, decision making, understanding, and storytelling

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Spreadsheets

No amount of staring at one is going to teach you about the data.Traditional reports using tables, rows, and columns do not paint the whole picture or, even worse, lead an analyst to a wrong conclusion.

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Many values can be encoded as one piece of information

Although the seeming ubiquity of BI dashboards would make it appear that data visualization must be commonplace, the reality is that most organizations are in the early stages of adoption and are still learning what users need.

--David Stodder, Senior Director of TWDI Research for Business Intelligence, 2013

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The ChallengeAs visualization designers we are melding the skills of computer science, statistics, artistic design, and storytellingK. Cukier (2010). Show me: New ways of visualizing data.http://www.economist.com/node/15557455

A picture is worth a thousand words

Creative Commons

Not all pictures are.ReadableInterpretableMeaningfulRelevantTimely

We need to better understand the use cases. How do we go beyond the models and technology?

How will the knowledge be used? When is it needed29

1. Consider humans are your audience

Underlying assumptions

DC: Humans possess separate channels for processing visual and auditory informationLC Humans are limited in the amount of information that they can process in each channel at one timeAP Humans engage in active learning by attending to relevant incoming information, organizing selected information into coherent mental representations, and integrating mental representations with other knowledge

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Techniques for using presenter-driven visuals

Annotation highlight whats importantAnimation guide the pathway

AnnotationsReserve the use of pre-attentive attributes as cues for your audience.

COLOR

AnnotationsReserve the use of pre-attentive attributes as cues for your audience.

FORM

AnnotationsReserve the use of pre-attentive attributes as cues for your audience.

MOVEMENT

AnnotationsReserve the use of pre-attentive attributes as cues for your audience.

SPATIAL POSITION

AnnotationsHighlight a data point using a pre-attentive attribute.

AnnotationsAvoid highlighting every data point.

AnimationProgressively reveal content

PANNING AND ZOOMING

AnimationShow time series data.

TEXT AND SIZE

AnimationMark as specific data point and see how it changes over time

HIGHLIGHT AND POSITION

2. Design for comprehension and retention.

Design for understanding and remembering, not for splash or effect. 45

Remember, it is a translation process.Nathan Yau

Representing data through shape, size, and color

The top 10 data visualization design principlesChart typeColorText and labelsReadabilityScales and proportionsData integrity & the lie factorChart JunkData densityData-ink ratioData Richness

Handout!48

3. Delivery

Delivery of visualizations

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Delivery of visualizations

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Delivery of visualizations

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Q & A

Thank You!Prof. Kristen Sosulski@sosulski ks123@nyu.edu