December 18, 2017 Updated September 27, 2018 to include single-select questions. Special thanks to Shaelyn McCole at Hootology who suggested the topic, Ryan Gensel at CPI who came up with a wonderful enhancement to the connected dot plot, and Jeffrey Shaffer at Data Plus Science who suggested some cosmetic improvements. Note: The original blog post only [...]
November 25, 2017 Special thanks to Jeffrey Shaffer, Andy Cotgreave, and Rody Zakovich for feedback that helped improve the dashboard that appears at the end of this post. Overview It seems I’m not the only person who has been thinking about stacked bar charts (see posts from Cole Nussbaumer Knaflic, Jonathan Schwabish, and Andy Cotgreave.) [...]
August 3, 2017 In my last blog post I pointed out that I wish I had put BANs (big-ass numbers) in the Churn dashboard featured in chapter 24 of the book (see https://www.datarevelations.com/iterate.html.) I had a similar experience this week when I revisited the Net Promoter Score dashboard from Chapter 17. I've been reading Don [...]
April 25, 2017 Overview I became a big fan of adding a marginal histogram to scatterplots when I first saw them applied in Tableau visualizations from Shine Pulikathara and Ben Jones. For those not familiar with how these work, consider the scatterplot shown in Figure 1 that shows the relationship between salary and age. [...]
More thoughts on the Markimekko chart and in particular how to build one in Tableau. April 4, 2017 Overview Given my reluctance to embrace odd chart types and my conviction that I would find something better I was surprised to find myself last month writing about -- and endorsing -- the Marimekko chart. If I [...]
Or How I stopped worrying and learned to love appreciate the Marimekko March 19, 2017 Overview Readers of my blog know that I suffer from what Maarten Lambrechts calls xenographphobia, the fear of unusual graphics. I’ll encounter a chart type that I’ve not seen before, purse my lips, and think (smugly) that there is undoubtedly [...]
February 22, 2017 Overview Earlier this week Gartner, Inc. published its “Magic Quadrant” report on Business Intelligence and Analytics (congratulations to Tableau for being cited as a leader for the fifth year in a row). Coincidentally, this report came on the heels of one of my clients needing to create a scatterplot where there were [...]
Overview Prior to working with Jeffrey Shaffer and Andy Cotgreave on the The Big Book of Dashboards I tended to look at BANs -- large, occasionally overstuffed Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) -- as ornamental rather than informational. I thought they just took up space on a dashboard without adding much analysis. I’ve changed my mind [...]
February 10, 2017 I was greatly saddened earlier this week when I read that Hans Rosling had died. Rosling was a Swedish professor of Global Health who, using data, stunning visualizations, and incredible charm, changed the way people understand the world. I first became aware of his work six years ago when a friend showed [...]
By Steve Wexler January 17, 2017 This is a follow-up to the post Jeff Shaffer and I wrote about what can happen when people fail to question sources and inadvertently amplify baseless findings. Overview There’s been great feedback on things the community can do to maintain all the good things about Makeover Monday (MM) and [...]
