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Datum Design: Rethinking Data Visualisation for...

Datum Design: Rethinking Data Visualisation for Business

Business data dashboards have gone through renaissance in the last five years with enhanced interactivity and easier tools to create them. However, most dashboard designed today are either at the 'pretty KPI decoration' end or at the 'detailed data explorers' end of the spectrum. They both fail to provide the level of insight communication, that we all see from purposeful designed visualisations in data journalism. This talks aims to understand the missing ingredients in current business dashboard design and aims to start a discussion on how we could rethink data visualisation for them. In the talk, I will explore a few guiding principles that could help us do this.

1. Amplify Cognition
2. Think Datum First
3. Show Single & All
4. Visualise Uncertainty
5. Towards Compositions
6. First Class Annotation
7. Layer Interactions

Amit Kapoor

April 26, 2017
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Transcript

  1. In the last few months... — Helping a startup —

    Reviewing multiple dashboard products — Understanding the tools landscape
  2. This made me very uncomfortable — Is it all so

    simple? — Why do I rarely see good dashboard design? — Explain the glaring gap between data journalism and business?
  3. “Business Information Seeking Dashboard Mantra: Overview Aggregate first, then zoom

    chart and filter link, and details table on demand” — Ben Shneiderman Every BI Designer Tool
  4. BI Dashboard Design Approach — Load a data table —

    Create aggregate measures — Make 1D or 2D charts
  5. BI Dashboard Design Approach — Load a data table —

    Create aggregate measures — Make 1D or 2D charts — Put them in a block layout
  6. BI Dashboard Design Approach — Load a data table —

    Create aggregate measures — Make 1D or 2D charts — Put them in a block layout — Link them with a few filters
  7. BI Dashboard Design Approach — Load a data table —

    Create aggregate measures — Make 1D or 2D charts — Put them in a block layout — Link them with a few filters — Add a table list for details
  8. Now this is too easy! — Task Layer: Unlock data

    using a Dashboard — Data Layer: Columnar data storage
  9. Now this is too easy! — Task Layer: Unlock data

    using a Dashboard — Data Layer: Columnar data storage — Visual Layer: Reusable charts in blocks
  10. Now this is too easy! — Task Layer: Unlock data

    using a Dashboard — Data Layer: Columnar data storage — Visual Layer: Reusable charts in blocks — Annotation Layer: Just the basics
  11. Now this is too easy! — Task Layer: Unlock data

    using a Dashboard — Data Layer: Columnar data storage — Visual Layer: Reusable charts in blocks — Annotation Layer: Just the basics — Interaction Layer: Brushing and Linking
  12. "There is a difference between simple and easy. Do not

    confuse the two. The simpler the thing is to understand, often the more difficult it is to do."
  13. Technology driving Design UpSide - Increased visual analytics - Better

    simple charts - Improved aesthetic - Modular and Scalable design
  14. Technology driving Design DownSide - Over-indexed on Singular Design Pattern

    - Shape of data is lost - Insight and Narrative is missing - Impersonal and Dry
  15. Datum Design 1. Amplify Cognition 2. Think Datum First 3.

    Show Single & All 4. Visualise Uncertainty 5. Towards Compositions 6. First Class Annotation 7. Layer Interactions
  16. 4. Visualise Uncertainty4 4 Visualising uncertainty about the future -

    David Spiegelhalter, Mike Pearson, Ian Short
  17. Upside Datum Design 1. Build a mental model 2. Understand

    the single story 3. Have a micro and macro picture 4. Know that data and model are uncertain 5. See the picture as a whole 6. Have a narrative to see 7. Move between layers of abstraction
  18. Principles of Datum Design 1. Amplify Cognition 2. Think Datum

    First 3. Show Single & All 4. Visualise Uncertainty 5. Towards Compositions 6. First Class Annotation 7. Layer Interactions
  19. One human life, closely observed, is everyone’s life. In the

    particular is the universal. — Roger Ebert