Data Visualization & Storytelling Top Tips

Datawell Overview

Ryan WithopFormer Sr. Mgr. Analytics, Electronic ArtsAnalytics Lead, Chosen.fm@RyanWithopData Visualization & Storytelling TipsSF Analytics Summit 03/16Comments in gray were added post-facto to help Slideshare readers.

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Source: Star Wars Battlefront, EA, DICEVideo game play recording of rwithopswag

This is what I was competing against visually at Electronic Arts.

This is what I had to compete with at EA we show this at quarterly meetings, and then we show my line graphs and bar graphs?

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Source: Charley Kyd, MBAhttp://exceluser.com/training/reporting/dashboard-ebook.htmlGreat for Finance. Terrible for communicating action.

Cant present this3

Source: James Gonzales, Ryan Withop Electronic Arts (EA)

412,000This is what is possible.

When I could present this4

Coaching Youth Soccer

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Coachs Tip

Look for the Coachs Tip logo signifying points to remember in data communication.

Construct see icon top Used on field stop play one tip to refocus and restart6

Its not about graphing, its about communicating.

Communicate the intended message7

Source: Github Kibanahttps://www.mihneadb.net/a-github-river-for-elasticsearch/

Graphing

Graphing8

Thank You Email Drives 10% Lift In 2nd Purchases+10%Communicating.

Communicating9

Understandable at-a-glanceTell a StoryActionable

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Thank You Email Drives 10% Lift In 2nd Purchases+10%Recommendation: Deploy Thank You emails across purchasing system within one hour of first transactionState the results at the top and provide next steps.

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Common MistakesIn Communicating


So small!

Source: Snellen Eye Charthttp://www.medicalsupplymegastore.com/snellen-eye-chart

Volunteer 2nd row 6th line get a shirtGreat Christmas present if you want it - $10.2013

Noise

Source: Grammar Tales Bloghttps://grammartales.wordpress.com/category/signs/Can you find 985 in just a couple seconds?

Lots among a forest, road sign14

Poor Communication MethodsCharadesChoosing the wrong means of communicating, such as Charades, will also stifle action.

Mining crafting15

Data Analysts commit the same mistakes.

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So small!

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NoiseSource: Dashboard Junkiehttp://www.dashboardjunkie.com/social-media-dashboard

How should the Marketing Manager determine what to do next? Too many signals.

Too much asking for my attention18

Poor Communication MethodsIs this the best way to signify how Taylor Swift is performing?

What is the story here? poor choice of charts19

Chart TypeCleanColorSizeThe Cs of Data Visualization

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ExamplesCsDashboardingTrends in VisualizationOverview

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Tableau, Domo, LookerGeckoboardAmplitude AnalyticsMixpanel, KissmetricsJS: wrapboostrapChart.io, QlikView8+2 Visualization SolutionsThese are the data platforms/visualization solutions I recently reviewed. Ask me on twitter if you have questions about these for your business.

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Examples of Great Visualizations

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Source: USA Today Super Bowl Ads 2014http://visual.ly/m/portfolio/science-of-superbowl-ads-usa-today/

Easy to visually determine the ROI.

Explain Super bowl adsBigger text in bar chart, use of red text?24

Source: Michael Carper, Apparatushttp://www.tableau.com/about/blog/2013/12/viz-hall-fame-27270

Interactive. Easy to see biggest companies by state.

Interactive - Click a state or industry to filter down the blob of biggest company bubbles25

Source: Michael Carper, Apparatushttp://www.tableau.com/about/blog/2013/12/viz-hall-fame-27270

Interactive Human Resources selected note the filtering26

Source: Diana Gosi, Fuzehttp://visual.ly/ugly-truth-about-meetings

Time in Meetings

Simple use of color to highlight. Simplicity.

Few simple elements wise use of color to emphasizeMultiple clicks27

Source: Diana Gosi, Fuzehttp://visual.ly/ugly-truth-about-meetings

Time in MeetingsIf story is that Upper Mgmt wastes the most time, this would be more effective.

She could have just shown this but this probably wouldnt live beyond her presentation28

Source: Ryan Sleeper - Evolyticshttps://public.tableau.com/profile/osmguy

$100K$483K$45K

Adding just a few visual elements, makes the data story more engaging.

Just a couple visual elements totally changes thisBroke boring bar chart into little bricks explaining the brickWould have added the totals29

Source: Arsenalhttps://www.facebook.com/Arsenal/This is really just one image and clever use of font sizes to make a point. You can do this with very little effort.

My favoriteReally just numbers and text but creative use of text size to make more readable30

Chosen where selfies compete

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Chosen

Example app used for the next series of charts. With some demo data I show how to best express the apps performance.

Not talented maybe you are great at spotting talent heart vote up, vote down, share, followConstruct games, videos, voting, events32

Chosen, Ellen Show

Source: TechCrunch, 12/4/2015http://techcrunch.com/2015/12/04/the-ellen-showsen/

Ellen became investor yesterday launched the app on her show entrants in her dance competition appearance on showMissy Elliot launched a gameFoxs TV Show Empire Future platform anyone in the world create a game33

Chart Types

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What is the Story?It is not clear what we are trying to say here. Changing the chart type will help us better communicate our message.

Not clear what trying to say with this chart35

Vertical Column Charts are for showing volume


Horizontal Bar Charts are forcomparisons


Ellens Dance Off Highest Retention Last MonthNotice how horizontal charts make it appear like the categories are competing against each other?

Our eyes are better at estimating size horizontallyNotice how it almost feels like these categories are racing each other?

(BTW: we will work on these colors later yuck!)38

Pie Chart

Is Taylor Swift Bigger than pop? Taylor more popular in N. America or Europe?Problem with Area Charts people are bad at judging size in circular fashion39

Pie is for eating not charting


Source: James Wright - YouTube Patti Labelle Sweet Potato PieVideo of James Wright singing about pie.

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Horizontal Stacked Bar ChartCompared to pie charts, this is much easier to compare any category between N.America and Asia.

How much easier it is to see the size difference between any individual item across Asia vs N.America?42

Line graphs best fortrends

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Trend Obvious

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Just OK At Comparison

Can see the trend really well, but comparison just ok45

Alternatives

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Add a 60% area chart, and change the data point formatting to no fill. See how your eyes no longer get lost on this page?

Area Chart make the fill color semi-transparent More Fill Colors -> Transparency=60%If your charting does not give you the actual points too.copy the data points, add in as a second series but change chart type to line with data points, change the outline colorgreen and fill color to white

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Too Many Bar Charts?

Sunrise Chart

Revenue YoY

2016 Proj

2015

2014

If you are demonstrating growth, here is an alternative. Y-axis is the and revenue are driven by the revenue in that year.

Set the x-axis the sameRevenue is the size dimensionY-axis is half the size dimension49

Source: Nelson Minar, Windhistory.org using D3.jshttp://windhistory.com/station.html?KSFO

How about a Rose Diagram to show multiple dimensions.

Wind Rose height is the # of times in that direction, text is current value, radial placement direction

I think color was the strength of the wind 4 dimensions easy to understand50

Source: XpertRule Decision Treehttp://www.xpertrule.com/pages/tech_da_engine.html

Data Scientists: nobody understands this Decision Tree but you.

Hard to explain to non-technical too many stats51

5x ARPU

Buy within 10minsCome from a referralIf your conclusion from the Decision Tree is this, than just show the results that matter.

Get to the point for business users52

Clean

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Too Many Categories

Too Many Categories54

Reduce to5-6 categories

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Horizontal Stacked Bar ChartReduce to five categories

Reduced to 5-6 categoriesClear that Asia has more variety in their choice of game and Ellen, Country less popular there56

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Removing unnecessary grid lines makes your chart easier to read.

Removed grid lines58

Do you even need the axis if all they want to know is what is our current value and are we improving?

Do you even need the axes if only current value and trajectory are necessary for your story?59

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23%conversion rate+2%45,936visitors+5%

95%retention rate+3%

Most asked questions by decision makers are what is the current value and are we improving. So why show line graphs (prev slide) when we can show just what they want to see?

Lots of white space and varietyMore on this dashboard I created later61

Color

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Let the storySTAND OUT

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Whats important here? I cant tell all screaming for my attention64

Too Much Color

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Gradient ColorsSimplifies the message. Darkest value gets the most attention.

Gradient Colors115% improvement in Rock category How to highlight an important result.

Which Games Should We Cross-Promote?

Which Games Should We Cross-Promote?Dark Green is High Affinity

Removing the text and using affinity as the shading dimension, we can now see that Ellen Dance Off and Taylor Swift should be cross promoted.

How quickly you can identify overlap in games69

Which Games Should We Cross-Promote?Dark Green is High Affinity

Add values back if they are relevant to your decision makers.

Can even add value back doesnt hurt much70

Size

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Can It Be Read From the Back?16+pt axes fonts, 20-24pt title font

16-18 pt font on the axes and axes labels20-24 pt title font72

Does It Tell Your Story?Scale Axes+10%

If 10% is meaningful to your company then disservice to present it the way shown in blue73

Does Scale Change the Story?

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Does Scale Change the Story?The previous slide made it appear that every dip was important, when these are actually normal deviations. Increase your y-axis scale to tell the story that there is little change.

If change in number of users here not significant, dont show it in a scale that makes look significantOnly asking to have to spend time researching cause behind every dip75

Animation

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Show Change in Static Chart

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Simple Animation

If showing change over time with animation, use Sequence Effect Options in Excel or growth in D3.js.

Wipe from BottomAnimate by Element in Series PowerPoint option78

Show Change in a Static ChartYou dont need animations if you always show older values in a more transparent color.

Using R or Tableau type tool just make chart previous value in lighter or more transparent colorClearly see purple dropping in value and blue rising in value79

Source: C3.js on pubnub.comhttps://www.pubnub.com/blog/2015-02-26-building-realtime-live-updating-animated-graphs-c3-js/Animated Donut Chart - C3.js

ere? I cant tell all screaming for my attention80

Dashboarding

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23%conversion rate+2%45,936visitors+5%


Use size and contrast to draw focus. Dark colors are current values, transparent colors are previous or unmet values.

Use of size and contrast and light use of color to draw focusMostly asked about the current value anyway82

What happened?How did we do against our goals?Are we getting better at this?Dashboarding Guidelines

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23%conversion rate+2%visitors+5%


45,936

50K

Encourage the team to meet their goals. Notice how you naturally feel the need for the dark bars to complete the gray goals bar.

Grey goal feel pressured to meet the goalHor bar feels like progress and pressureSpark instead of trend lines to show getting better84

Establish a clear GRID

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Source: Color Admin Theme - wrapbootstraphttps://wrapbootstrap.com/themes

Poor gridding makes your eyes wander.

Like the coloring not a bad dashboard could be better with a little more alignment86

Source: Homer Theme - wrapbootstraphttps://wrapbootstrap.com/themes

Simple griding makes it easy to find information, esp. if grouped.

Like the Grid system easy for eyes to move from section to sectionI added color to top to make it stand outOrganized incorrectly, put the income together with income related items beneath it, LAST ACTIVITY move under the colored activity sections so just look down87

Draw in users eyes withCONTRAST

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Source: Cloudfront Theme - wrapbootstraphttps://wrapbootstrap.com/themes

Good contrast showing different data types above. Lower boxes contrast is too high and competes for our attention.

Good amount of contrast, maybe too much with bottom group of text boxes competing for attention89


What is important here?

Whats important here? I cant tell all screaming for my attention and not screaming at the same time90

Most important informationTOP LEFT

he intended message91

Source: ClickTale Heatmaphttp://www.clicktale.com

Web studies of our eye movements show the users mostly view the top left of a page. This is where your most important results belong.

Top left most importantMost put logo there what percentage of your employees dont know what company they work for? move it to the bottom92

Simple use of color with this demo dashboard. How could it be improved?

In this case new partnership maybe want to highlight how many users we are getting(fake data)Maybe better if I can get a smaller logo hold grid betterHow to make the funnel93

Jennifer VeesenmeyerHow to Master the Art of Dashboard Design@wholly_geek

See her94

Source: James Gonzales, Ryan Withop Electronic Arts (EA)

412,000

Simple color scheme, bar chart for hitting goals, sizing metrics for highlighting what is important, and a simple graphic. You can do this too now.

Back to beginning of our presentationSee how this is actually simple only a few elements95

Future of VisualizationOpen SourceD3.js, Chart.js, Rmarkdown, ggplot2, OpenStreetmap, wrapbootstrapAnimation Easier creation of complex visualizations

Understandable at-a-glanceTell a StoryActionable

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Chart TypeCleanColorSizeThe Cs of Data Visualization

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Doesnt have to be beautiful, but it does have to beUNDERSTANDABLE


Ryan WithopFormer Sr. Mgr. Analytics, Electronic ArtsAnalytics Lead, Chosen.fm@RyanWithopData Visualization & Storytelling TipsSF Analytics Summit 03/16

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Data & Analytics

Data Visualization & Storytelling Top Tips