Heart Disease Classification Report: A Data Analysis Project
Bringing Data to Life: Making Charts That Don't Suck
1. Bringing Data to Life
aka
Making Charts That Don’t Suck
Dan Sweet
April 2014
2. Agenda
• The Challenge
• The Power of Design
• Ways People are Weird
• Data Visualization Design Principles
• Data Visualization @ P&G
• Tools Available
• Case Studies
• Extreme Graph Makeover
12. Workplace Challenges
• Communication
• Influence without positional power
• Effectively and persuasively share analysis
However, the bulk of the people we work with
are human. Humans are emotional creatures of
habit and don’t always listen to reason.
13. Role of Finance
• Rational objective analysis
• Accurate
• Impartial
• Dispassionate
ASSUMPTION: Objective Reality Exists
Does it?
14.
15.
16.
17. Deciding on having surgery…
90% chance of survival
10% chance of death
Will you have the surgery?
18.
19.
20. Problem with humans
• Action preferred over accuracy
• Ambiguity is inherent in life
• Ambiguity ≈ Risk
• Risk Negative Emotions
• Motivation: Pursuing Gains or Avoiding Losses
• Avoiding Losses > Pursuing Gains
Result is a tendency to make decisions on feelings
instead of knowledge
“Human Based Visual Communication” presentation by Dan Young – Corporate CMK
21. Much Information Processing is:
•Holistic
•Low Involvement
•Habitual
•Affect/Emotion Driven
•Driven by past experiences
“Human Based Visual Communication” presentation by Dan Young – Corporate CMK“Human Based Visual Communication” presentation by Dan Young – Corporate CMK
22. Brain has 2 “Modes” of Operation
System 1:
Fast
Intuitive
Emotional
System 2:
Slower
More deliberative
More logical
25. Brain has 2 “Modes” of Operation
System 1:
Fast
Intuitive
Emotional
System 2:
Slower
More deliberative
More logical
26. Low Involvement Logic
Benefits of graphics that can be processed at this
level:
• Fluent Processing Of Highly Accessible
Information
• Feelings of Familiarity
• Approach Behavior
Key Question:
Given the question and the broader communication
context, is your graphic “message” intuitive?
“Human Based Visual Communication” presentation by Dan Young – Corporate CMK“Human Based Visual Communication” presentation by Dan Young – Corporate CMK
27. Tell a Story
• Integrate information presented
• Create a more concrete and familiar context
• Lead to increased fluency/ease of processing the
information
• Create relevant emotions/affect
• Help link to existing knowledge
Make your message more memorable and likely to
impact behavior
“Human Based Visual Communication” presentation by Dan Young – Corporate CMK“Human Based Visual Communication” presentation by Dan Young – Corporate CMK
45. Review:
Design Principles / Weird People
• People are odd – make it easy for them
• Maximize data/ink ratio – clean design
• If using color, make it meaningful
• Consider avoiding red/green – accessibility
• Highlight what is important – bold, italics, size,
shape, line type, etc.
• Avoid pie charts
• Avoid 3D
48. This is the part where I delete
25 slides of P&G-specific case
studies and before and after
examples.
49. Extreme Graph Makeover
This is fun IRL, but the competition and
anonymous group critique where we all
apply our new found skills and then tear
apart each other’s work doesn’t translate to
Slideshare – sorry.
50. Hans Rosling – GapMinder
http://www.youtube.com/watch
?v=jbkSRLYSojo#t=0m29s
51. Credits
Cognitive psychology elements from a Dan Young
(Corporate CMK) presentation titled “Human Based
Visual Communication” presented at the 2011
Statistics Symposium.
Books written by Edward Tufte and Stephen Few
Stephen Few’s site: perceptualedge.com
http://www.slideshare.net/janwillemtulp/data-
visualization-5724069