How to foil the three villains of data visualization - Tableau Software Edition

How to Foil the Three Villains of Data Visualization
HOW TO FOIL THE THREE VILLAINS OF DATA VISUALIZATION™
Copyright © 2015 by Lee Feinberg
(e-thusiasm, inc. DBA DecisionViz)
2
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including
photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods,
without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case
of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other
noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission
requests, write to the publisher, addressed “Attention: Permissions
Coordinator,” at the address below.
DecisionViz
916 Harding Street
Westfield, NJ 07090

How to Foil the Three Villains of Data Visualization 3
FOREWORD
John Jensen
Tableau Software
Director
Enterprise Accounts
Northeast
Big data is all around us. CEOs, schoolteachers, scientists, small-business owners, consumers, and
children feel the impact of data and the need to make quick decisions.
“How to Foil the Three Villains of Data Visualization” helps people who are stuck in the data deluge and
curious as to how best to enter the age of analytics and visualization and/or teach others.
Lee Feinberg likens the “data viz” journey to the age of the dinosaur and how the caveman survived by
developing the ability to recognize and differentiate between threats and non-threats. In the modern era,
this is no longer about discerning between what can kill you or not – but to know what is good and/or
interesting and what is not, especially from a data perspective.
The caveman developed the “fight or flight” response. In modern context, this relates to how we handle
new information. The “fight” response is to engage and listen. “Flight” is to disengage; an example is pulling
out your phone or laptop in a meeting “to multi-task.”
Lee talks about the trouble in recognizing good (engaging) data and which data you should run from.
Visualization, when used correctly, vastly accelerates the ability and desire for people to engage with data.
Good visualization will promote debate, learning, personal growth – all of which improve your business!
I hope you enjoy the book as it's written well, with humor, and most importantly, practical know-how when it
comes to helping organizations adopt visualization. Some people see the need and opportunity to evolve
behaviors around data and sense-making. If you're one of those people, you're likely going to give this book
to someone you care about helping see the importance of visualizing data – the new survival skill.

How to Foil the Three Villains of Data Visualization4
You’re probably wondering
what a dinosaur possibly has
to do with visualization
Back in the day, the caveman
worried about this a lot —
because he would get eaten.
So, they evolved to quickly
recognize what could eat
them and make a decision
whether to run or keep going
about their day.
It’s the same in business. We
want to know if everything is
ok and move on, or see what’s
not going as planned and take
action to get back on track.

While we don’t have to worry
about dinosaurs any more, our
new enemy is too much data
— and worrying about data is
a big part of your day.
We have trouble recognizing
which data is good and which
data to run away from.
When we don’t know where to
focus our attention, we either
make bad decisions or slow
decisions — or no decisions.
Sometimes we are so
overwhelmed we just opt to
not use the data and revert
back to instinct and guts.

Fortunately, evolution has
been kind to us.
We have developed the ability
to recognize complex patterns
in literally the blink of an eye
Here’s something that’s
going to blow your mind!
Our brains work on images as
soon as we see them. In a
way, we are thinking about
what the image means before
using effort to think about it.
the brain can identify
images seen for as little as
13 milliseconds
6

VISUALIZATION: 
the art and science of
transforming complex data
into simple pictures
for making decisions
We pay a penalty for images
that don’t communicate our
message clearly. Our brains
are not working efficiently.
Most people think that data
visualization is the work of
turning data into some charts.
This is definitely not the case.
Data is for making decisions
and driving to action! Else,
it’s just lifeless information.
Visualization merges human
perception, analytics, design,
and business strategy.
There’s nothing like it!

But, instead of focusing on the
business, it might be common
that your team creates a visual
when a request comes in.
Does this sound familiar? The
SVP of Sales asks, “I want to
see customers in regions by
profit, sales, and discount.”
You could build many types of
visuals to show this data set.
Here’s one idea that is pretty
straightforward to create. But,
it’s hard to see relationships.
In fact, you can’t even see all
the customers on one screen.

The goal of a visualization is to
quickly communicate an idea.
Here is the same data and you
can easily see relationships
like customers with over $1K
Profit and Discount over 5%.
While it doesn’t take a lot of
time to design this visual, it
does take experience and
training to select this as the
way to deliver your message.
Our company’s work is crafted
around the vision of helping
every customer BE A GREAT
COMMUNICATOR OF DATA™

Maybe your team has faced
this kind of challenge in
creating strong visualizations.
We have helped our clients
vanquish the three villains:
Tragedy of Tables™
Tyranny of Pie Charts™
Treachery of Averages™
If you haven’t come across
them, you should now be on
the lookout and be ready to
set yourself up for success.
Understand these challenges
and become the hero that
delivers great visualizations.

1. Tragedy of Tables
I’m sure this story sounds
familiar. During the weekly
sales review, one executive
shows a table with hundreds
of numbers and says “As you
can see, the trend is…”
My company sees clients use
the latest software to wrangle
databases or large Excel files.
Those users are satisfied to
get the data into a table like
this, and they totally pass up
using any visualization.
This to me is a tragedy!

With a table of data, you have to use a lot of mental energy to even
answer questions that our client thought seemed quite simple like:
• Which product had the highest quarterly sales?
• Which product had the best sales in Q4 2014?
• Which product sold the most the last four years?
• Which year had the highest overall Q2 sales?
Each of these questions is possible to answer, but you will also
probably worry about accuracy. Most importantly it takes a lot of time.
You don’t have time and your users don’t have time.

Our client wanted to take a
crack at making the table
more visual, and here it is.
When we talked about their
design approach, they
showed how their software
suggested a couple options,
and this looked best to them.
Well, they didn’t consider that
software doesn’t know the
questions people are asking.
Software doesn’t know the
idea you seek to communicate
or the story you want to tell.
But you know!

Software is an enabler — and
you can enable it to do this.
After you learn to work the
software, you have to make
the software work for you.
When you apply the software
in a way that makes insights
appear, you answer focused
business questions and truly
make data strategic.
Data then becomes part of the
decision-making process.
You can have tremendous
impact through visualization.

2. Tyranny of Pie Charts
Everyone that knows me well,
knows I’m not a pie charts fan.
If you go to our blog, read the
series “10+ Ways to Leave
Your Pie Charts.” Enjoy it 😀
I bet you have heard someone
say, “My boss loves this pie
chart and I can’t change it...”
Many of our clients aren’t sure
what to change it to anyway,
so it’s easier to leave it alone.
No worries, I’m going to share
an option that works great.

Bar charts are always (almost)
a replacement for pie charts.
You don’t have to wrestle with
interpreting slices, you reduce
the number of colors, and it’s
easy to compare length.
It is simple to compare across
categories and see groupings.
This is not as ‘colorful’ as a pie
chart, but it’s much clearer.
People may demand to have
their pie charts back, but don’t
give in. Have patience to help
them see and understand
value in your new approach. 17

“The tyranny” idea isn’t just about pie charts.
Tyranny is about anytime your organization fights the status quo.
Change generally makes people uncomfortable. You have to champion
new visualization ideas (and possibly bear a few slings and arrows).
We recommend to use the old and the updated views for a while as a
transition period. Eventually, the hold-outs always prefer to change!
Better visualizations have a huge multiplier affect on your team and
organization. You are making it easier to engage in a conversation
about the business, and more importantly, easier to clearly see insights
that lead to stronger decisions and targeted action.

3. Treachery of Averages
So far, we triumphed over two
villains by using visualizations
for clear results. We are great
communicators of data.
We chose visuals based on
the questions our team wants
to answer, decisions to make,
and actions to drive.
But, the third villain is the
worst and always tempts us.
It causes us to conduct a poor
analysis, even when we use
visualization best practices.

Let’s continue our analysis of
office supplies and look at
profit margin, a measure you
probably know quite well.
As we covered, bars are useful
to compare values. Here, you
quickly see which products
have a healthy profit margin.
In particular, Labels, Paper,
and Envelopes are over 40%.
But, don’t get too excited
about these numbers. There’s
actually something quite
sinister going on here 😈.

Profit Sales
Profit
Margin
Product 1 5 10 50%
Product 2 1 1.5 67%
Profit Margin = Profit / Sales
22
Profit margin is the average of
profit and sales, and averages
are good at hiding information.
Averages can lead you to an
incorrect or partial analysis.
They are treacherous!
Averages are math working
against us. In this example,
Product 2 has a better profit
margin, but profit and sales
are way lower than Product 1.
You may be drawn to analyze
Product 2, although Product 1
actually has more impact.

An x-y (scatter) plot exposes
the information averages hide
by showing relationships. It’s
my favorite visual tool.
Now we see how Envelopes,
Labels, and Paper perform at
the level of sales and profit.
All three are almost equal on
profit margin, but Paper is
where ‘the money is at.’
Based only on profit margin,
we might have spent a lot of
time analyzing Envelopes or
Labels before looking at Paper.

Tragedy of Tables Tyranny of Pie Charts Treachery of Averages
24

Intent Before Content™
Use questions and analysis to drive all your visualizations. Focus on
the data and you risk letting in the villains and all havoc they create.
1. Get started with new ideas and improve over time. Build knowledge
of how visualization works and make the software work for you! 
2. Face the evil of status quo. People will resist, but have faith. Tell a
clear visual story and you will gain followers that believe. 
3. Your effort magnifies impact. Make visuals easy for your audience
and you will be influencing decision makers and action takers.
I await celebrating your victories. Excelsior!

We partnered with the world leaders
in big data and visualization

Break your addiction to reporting™
[ commit yourself ] @ www.VizRehab.Com

How to foil the three villains of data visualization - Tableau Software Edition

How to foil the three villains of data visualization - Tableau Software Edition

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