eMetrics London 2015: Getting data visualisation to work

@analytdata #eMetrics
Sean Burton – Analyt
sean@analyt.co.uk | @analytdata | analyt.co.uk
I'm passionate about improving customer experience and business value by
using a blend of data, technology and psychology.
• Formerly the Director of Measurement at Seren Design Ltd.
• A 15 year career covering: eLearning, Content Management Systems,
Interaction Design, Product Management, Web Analytics, and Data
Visualisation.
• Extensive experience with FTSE 100 companies across financial,
telecommunication, gaming, and retail sectors.

Services
Blended Measurement Solution
Digital customer intelligence consultancy, specialising in services that optimise the Customer Experience (CX)
journey & drive digital business performance
Technical feasibility Audits
Business
Requirements
Planning, Design and Metric
Mapping
Implementation support
Reporting, automation and
visualisation
Training, optimisation and
maintenance
Customer advocacy and
modelling
Optional On-going
support
Data Analysis
& Visualisation
Web & Digital
Analytics
UX Design &
Accessibility
Data Integration
& Automation
Planning
Auditing & Implementation
Support & Training
Surveys &
Voice of
Customer

• Over the years I’ve produced plenty of bad reports
• I’ve worked with lots of clients that have tons of terrible reports
• Why terrible?

Loads of effort
&
a complete waste of time

And so, this is a story of what I’ve
learned…

Are you sitting comfortably? Then I’ll begin…

Meet ‘Jeff’
• He spent all his time writing reports
and was frustrated that nothing ever
seemed to happen
• Execs were frustrated because they
didn’t understand the implications of
his reports and so couldn’t act on them
• He was depressed, had lots of sick
days, and was on notice of possible
redundancy

How we perceive

Physical
• Printed?
• On Screen?
• On Mobile?
• Distance / Time
• Black/White or Colour?
Physiological
• Male red/green colour-
blindness
• Retinal Density
• Focal Points
• Eye Strain
Psychological
• Quicker to process vertical &
horizontal lines
• Quicker to process an image
when proportions match
Golden Ratio
• Colour association / Bias
• Information overload

Everything
should be
made as
simple as
possible but
not simpler.
“
”

But far too
often…

The hard fought journey of our hero

S#!t in
=
S#!t out

Good KPI
Strategic
measures of
success
Actionable
Easy to
understand
Based on
valid data

Requirements
analysis
•Interviews with
stakeholders
Data and systems
review
•Review data sources
•Review current
reports
•Review reporting
systems
Design
•Conceptual reporting
model
•Data model
•Dashboard wireframes
•Mock ups
Prototype
•Dashboard design and
prototyping
•Reporting technology
selection
Automation
•Production systems
•Dissemination

Use Sparklines to show trend of
metric during selected period
Warning ‘flag’ icons to indicate a
significant negative event
All metrics provided with period
comparators to give context
Synchronised Bullet charts used to
show metrics against target

• Know your audience – include something that they can relate to
• Start with the pain points – put the audience in the shoes of their customers
• Move onto a narrative that combines hard quantitative metrics with actual qualitative customer
feedback
• Restrict yourself to highlighting only 3 key problems to avoid the audience getting lost – keep focused
• Dashboards should be interactive allowing the user to investigate & explore – Add filters or actions to
allow for data driven navigation
• A commentary can be added to highlight known issues or areas of interest. Remember to focus on
implications/reasons rather than simply saying “metric A went up by X%”
• Tableau provides a ‘story’ mode allowing an analyst to pre-configure a sequence of dashboard
manipulations providing a guided data tour
• Finish with your solutions to the problems and the expected benefits

Our hero saves the day – roll end credits…

5 Key elements for Dashboard success:
1. Relevance
• Make sure you’re showing the right stuff to the right person at the right time
2. Context
• Try to ‘ground’ each metric, by showing the: metric; trend; and comparator (3D
Metric Presentation)
• Also think about other associated metrics
3. Colour
• Use sparingly, e.g. only red for alerts
• Don’t solely depend on colour to convey meaning – couple with an icon, e.g.
green up-arrow vs red down-arrow.
• Consider colour associations, e.g. Blue for Conservative & Red for Labour.
4. Story
• Configure the dashboard to tell a story. Most people read top-left to bottom-
right – try to layout metrics with a logical flow and consider adding a
commentary.
5. Aesthetic
• Be driven by function and not form. However, tailor your design to your
audience, you don’t want an exec to be put off simply because the dashboard
is ugly!

• Finish on a high - point out the
opportunities rather than the problems
• Ensure you have a feedback loop &
iterate reports to ensure value
• Remember ‘Jeff’?
• Spend most of his time talking with end-users
& builds reports based on what gives most
value;
• Automates basic reporting tasks so he can
work on something more interesting;
• He’s happy, got promoted, and is now a vital
part of the decision process;
• Everyone wins!

info@analyt.co.uk @analytdat
a
0191 704 2045 W analyt.co.uk
Digital customer intelligence consultancy, specialising in services that optimise customer experience & drive digital business performance

eMetrics London 2015: Getting data visualisation to work

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eMetrics London 2015: Getting data visualisation to work