Data Visualization

John F. Tripp
Introduction
• About me
• Assistant Professor at Clemson University (fourth year)
• PhD in IT Management from Michigan State University (2012)
• Teaching in the AMPBA since Batch #1.
• Over 17 years of “real-world” experience designing and developing rich user
interactive applications.
• I have 8 kids (25-9)

• Consulting

• LinkedIn (jftripp)
Overall Plan
• This weekend – theory and foundations.
• A little hands-on…
• Ongoing – hands-on applications of principles of visualization.
• Using Tableau.
• Yes, there are other software packages.
• No, we won’t be using them.

• This course will be concept heavy, and less focused on a particular software package.

• Any of the concepts that we learn in this course will be applicable on any platform.
Storytelling with Data
What we’re doing with Data Visualization…
• Fundamentally we are always attempting to do one of two things:

1. Tell a specific, predetermined story based upon known questions.

2. Provide the ability for a user to answer “their story” through a set of related
visualizations.
Does this tell a story?

Is it clear?
NO:

Many different,
unrelated data.

Tries to be too many

things to too many
people
Getting to the foundation
• What is the first and most important question that you must answer
in order to build the “most not wrong” visualization?
Getting to the foundation
• What is the first and most important question that you must answer
in order to build the “most not wrong” visualization?

• What is the cognitive evaluation your viewer needs assistance to

perform?

• Usually, a visualization can properly assist only one (or several highly
interrelated) evaluation(s) at a time.
Meta-Rules for Data Viz
1. The simplest chart is usually the one that communicates most clearly (e.g., use
the “not wrong” chart – not the “cool” chart)
2. Always DIRECTLY represent the relationship you are trying to communicate.
(e.g., don’t leave it to the viewer to calculate it from other information)
3. Never ask viewers to compare levels of a single dimension in two dimensions
(e.g., comparing differences in length is easy, comparing differences in area is
hard)
4. Never use color on top of color. (e.g., color is not absolute)
5. Do not violate the primal instincts of your viewers. (e.g., up means more)
6. Chart with graphical and ethical integrity! (e.g., don’t lie, either by mistake or
intentionally)
What is right/wrong here?
What is right/wrong here?
What is right/wrong here?
What is right/wrong here?
What is right/wrong here?
What is right/wrong here?
Meta-Rules for Data Viz
1. The simplest chart is usually the one that communicates most clearly (e.g., use
the “not wrong” chart – not the “cool” chart)
2. Always DIRECTLY represent the relationship you are trying to communicate.
(e.g., don’t leave it to the viewer to calculate it from other information)
3. Never ask viewers to compare levels of a single dimension in two dimensions
(e.g., comparing differences in length is easy, comparing differences in area is
hard)
4. Never use color on top of color. (e.g., color is not absolute)
5. Do not violate the primal instincts of your viewers. (e.g., up means more)
6. Chart with graphical and ethical integrity! (e.g., don’t lie, either by mistake or
intentionally)
Getting to the Heart of It
• Who?

• What?

• How?
Getting to the Heart of it…
Who is the audience?
• Do we always know?

What is the story?

How will the visualization be

presented?
• Live, with speaker?
• Alone, at desk, with no
assistance?
Getting to the Heart of It
• What is the context?

• There is one and only one way to understand the context.

• You must become an expert in it.

Getting to the Heart of It
• How do you become the expert? Ideas?

• ASK
• Sit with them and watch them work. Ask them:
• “What are you thinking right now?”
• “What are you trying to answer at each step?”
• Do the work they are doing.
Getting to the Heart of it
• Step 1: Build the Cognitive Flow.
• Step 2: Identify the “similarity” or “relatedness” of each step of the
flow.
• Step 3: Identify the “most not wrong” visualization to use.
• Step 4: Identify the level of contextual assistance you must provide.
Step 1: Map out the COGNITIVE FLOW
• What’s the first question they need to answer…
• What’s the next question they need to answer…
• Etc.
• Etc.
• Etc.
• Are there BRANCHES that they pursue based upon the answers to any
question?
The Cognitive Flow

Is this an exploratory or
explanatory visualization
flow?
Step 2: Identify the ”Similarity” of the Steps
• When the questions are more similar, they lend themselves to being
presented on one screen.

• When they are more different, they should be split across multiple,
linked screens.

• There is not a “science” to this – you will have to determine in each

case what is necessary.
• Sometimes you may need to split up even very similar steps due to limited
visual “real estate”
Step 3: Identify the “Most Not Wrong” Graph
• As we will discuss in the class, the ”most not wrong” graph is a
function of:
• The data relationship being illustrated.
• The audience’s understanding of context.
• The question being answered/assisted with.

• We will spend time most weeks going over identifying the “most not
wrong” graphs for typical situations.
Step 4: Contextual Assistance
• Based upon several factors, various levels of contextual assistance are
required.
Method of Presentation
Individual Live

Audience Contextual Knowledge

Low High

Complexity of the Question

Low High
Exploratory vs. Explanatory
Exploratory Explanatory
Step 4: Contextual Assistance
• Method of Presentation
• When presenting live, you will “perform” the context through your narration.
• You will lead your audience through the “story”.
• There is little need to add high levels of annotation to provide additional
context.

Method of Presentation
Individual Live
Step 4: Contextual Assistance
• Audience Contextual Knowledge
• Even when presenting live, you may need to give the audience additional
context.
• Annotations
• Comparisons
• Etc.
• When the user is working through the visualization themselves, you will need
to provide more context – regardless of audience knowledge.
• You may need to break out visualizations into additional “sub-steps”.

Audience Contextual Knowledge

Low High
Step 4: Contextual Assistance
• Complexity of the Question
• The more complex the question, the more “steps” you will need to provide
understanding.

• Do NOT fall into the trap of trying to answer a highly complex question with an
“uber-graph” that tries to show all facets of the question.
• Complex questions usually require at least one dashboard plus additional graphs.

Complexity of the Question

Low High
Step 4: Contextual Assistance
• Exploratory vs. Explanatory
• This is the hardest distinction to identify needed contextual cues.
• When questions are exploratory, it is more likely that your audience isn’t going to
know all of the “questions” they should be asking.
• More need for compare and contrast stories (conventional wisdom vs. what we’ve found in
the analysis”
• When the question is “explanatory”, we have firmly defined a question.
• This question and its assumptions should be presented as part of the results.

Exploratory vs. Explanatory

Exploratory Explanatory
In Closing
• The most important part of the Data Visualization process is NOT the
beautiful, excellent graph.

• It is the process you go through to identify that your beautiful,

excellent graph will answer the question that your viewer needs help
processing.

• We will cover many specifics of these processes throughout the

remainder of the class.