Sometimes You Just Gotta Give 'Em What They Want

I’m probably guilty of this as much, if not more than anyone else:

Not letting go of the Principles of Data Visualization.

I say this because I have studied these principles inside and out. I have a tendency to read the words of Stephen Few, Edward Tufte and several other experts as though they are written in stone.

This is something I have to consciously recognize and then quickly get over. Even Stephen Few will tell you, the best dashboard is the one that is used.

The fact of the matter is, if we are building a dashboard, we are probably building it for someone else. That someone probably has less knowledge of data viz design and often has no desire to understand data viz design. But in the end, we have to deliver something that our client will adopt, use, understand and ultimately take action on. If we don’t accomplish these things, our dashboard will not be a success, no matter how good of job we did applying the principles!

So, if a client or manager or director wants to see all good/bad data scenarios to be marked with green/yellow/red, then that’s what we deliver. Do we know that statistically, approximately 10% of the population may not be able to decipher between green and red? Yes! Then why do we do it? Because it’s not a show-stopper and if it helps to increase adoption, that’s a win.

With this said, you still don’t want to create “3-D, Spinning, Flaming Pie Charts”. There are certain things like chart selection that you will want to save your battles for.

And when you do get asked to build that “3-D, Spinning, Flaming Pie Chart”, if your tool will actually build it, go for it. But be sure to provide a better solution right beside it. Explain the difference and hope that your client SEES the better way.

I chose to write about this in response to a healthy debate I had based on the following tweet I posted:

While I stand by my comment and believe that there are much better ways to display data than through a donut chart...I am developing a dashboard now for an executive that will include a series of donut charts with a % Value in the center.

#BendButDon’tBreak

Cheers! 

Kevin Taylor