Data-driven decision-making can become the norm for people across your organisation if you enable them to use vision to think, by harnessing the data they need with well-designed visualisations. In this talk we’ll look at why this is important and how it makes a difference. We’ll see how visualisation impacts different types of users and will look at the different types of data visualisation and their relevance to the work environment. Finally, we’ll explore some examples of the data visualisation projects we’ve worked on to help professional users make better decisions, faster.

1. Data visualisation for decision support
Better decisions, by design
Dr Mischa Weiss-Lijn @mweissli @RMA_consulting

2. Data visualisation
1. Why?
2. Who for?
3. The different flavours?
RMA
1. A little bit us…
2. …and the data visualisation work we’ve done

3. Encouraging better decision making across an organisation
Democratising data

4. Democratising data in an organisation
You can make data-driven decision making
the norm for people across organisations if
you enable them to use vision to think, by
harnessing the data they need with well
designed visualisations

5. Interactive Data
Visualisation
empowers people to
make better decisions
by enabling them to
use Vision to think
1000s of data points at a glance
Get answers in context
See the big picture, the patterns
Compare datasets
Spot outliers
Interactively focus & transform

6. Visualisation shifts mental processing
Bertin 2010, “Semiology of Graphics:
Diagrams, Networks, Maps”

7. Visual tools can simplify,
improve and quicken decision making
Better decisions
Interactive visualisations empower
people to get to the big picture
Deeper understanding

8. But who for?

9. A typology of data users
Data scientists Data junkies
Data neutrals Dataphobes

10. Data scientists
- Emerging and rare discipline
- Expertise in advanced analysis of
complex datasets
- Diverse skills in statistics databases
and development
- Use specialist tools and frameworks
such as R, Python and Hadoop.

11. Data junkies
- Happy with numbers
- Spend time building complex
spreadsheets
- Want to drive their decisions using data,
but often don’t have the time and tools
to put ambitions into practice.

12. Data neutrals
- Majority in most organisations
- Will work with numbers when needed
- Put off by tables of numbers
- Don’t have skills or confidence to
analyse data.

13. Data phobes
- Scared by numbers
- Lack the urge, skills or confidence, to
manipulate and analyse.

14. A typology of data users
Data scientists Data junkies
Data neutrals Dataphobes

15. From information art to workhorse visualisation tools
Flavours of visualisation

16. Information
Art
Information
Graphics
Data
Graphics
Narrative
Visualisations
Workhorse
Visualisations
A loose classification for visualisation
Engaging
Passive
Static/Dynamic
Illustrative
Passive
Static
Accurate
Passive
Static / dynamic
Illustrative
Interactive
Static/Dynamic
Accurate
Interactive
Dynamic

17. 56 days worth of food
A detailed study of
personal food
consumption from
February 1st to
March
31st, 2010.The first
poster deals with the
food I eat the most
ranked by quantity
eaten versus calorie
content of each food.
Information art

20. David McCandles
Information graphics

21. David McCandles

23. Data graphics

26. Narrative visualisations

29. Workhorse visualisations

32. RMA Consulting
A little bit about us

33. RMA specialises in creating
powerful and smart enterprise solutions
Not here today, gone tomorrow campaign work

34. Energy
Weather monitoring
Finance
Trading and banking tools
Telecoms
Billing tools
Defence
Mission planning
Health
A&E triage & management
Managed Services
HR Onboarding

35. Smart systems for decision makers
Selected case studies

36. Award winning multi-asset single dealer platform
UBS: Neo

37. Award winning multi-asset single dealer platform
UBS: Neo
UBS Neo is an entirely new
approach to client engagement in
investment banking. It is a
platform that unifies and delivers
the very best of UBS; its people,
content, research, trading ideas,
pricing and execution capabilities.
It was developed to provide the
firm’s clients with a seamless, fully
integrated cross-asset and
cross-functional experience.

39. Powerful, data-driven tool for catastrophe modelling in the London market
vR: Visualising Risks

40. We worked with key players in the
London Insurance Market to
develop the vR product concept.
It vR allows analysts to rapidly
understand portfolio risk, and
create compelling visualisations
that efficiently communicates the
big picture to senior management.
Powerful, data-driven tool for catastrophe modelling in the London market
vR: Visualising Risks

41. Create. Explore and analyse your
data, by creating specialised
maps and charts using your
standard data sources.
Capture. Extract key
visualisations for easy insertion
into standard, PowerPoint or
Excel, board reports.
Demonstrate. Click through to
live, interactive, visualisations to
make your point and
conclusively answer questions.
Powerful, data-driven tool for catastrophe modelling in the London market
vR: Visualising Risks

42. NHS: Kids Sleep Doctor
Help for parents of children with sleep disorders

43. Help for parents of children with sleep disorders
Evelina: Kids Sleep Doctor
Built using RMA’s own finger-painting
method of data capture, Kids Sleep Dr
allows parents simply to glide their finger
over the diary to quickly enter in their
child’s sleep patterns.
Kids Sleep Doctor intelligently offers
intelligent personalised tips, that have
been distilled from years of research,
clinical experience, and feedback from
the hundreds of parents who frequent
the Evelina London Children's Sleep
Medicine Department every year - the
UK’s busiest sleep clinic.

44. Grant Thornton: Data vis consulting
Visual thinking for an analytical consultancy Try it on: bit.ly/1GHpOZh

45. RMA LABS: Election simulator
Visualising possible futures Try it on: bit.ly/1GvQOWk

46. RMA LABS: Tweather
All in a Twitter over the Weather Try it on: bit.ly/1PXJKZf

47. And...yes, we are recruiting!
rma-consulting.com/careers/
Thank you