Sarah DeAtley
information + analysis + design
June 22, 2009 at 2:37 am
filed under Web Analytics
Tagged Avinash Kaushik, burke, data visualization, excel, father's day, web analytics, ZAAZ
I think its only appropriate that in honor of my father, an accountant, that I spent the day BBQ-ing and playing with Excel. Apparently in web analytics, reporting tools gather the data, but you manipulate or “do cool stuff” with it in Excel. So I now know way more than I ever thought I needed to about PivotTables and such (which will come in handy at ZAAZ). Excel 2007 does seem to make it pretty easy to do all of the basic things like calculating sums, but I have a sneaking feeling that I will be doing more complicated things than this.
I should probably be focusing equally on data visualization (i.e. charts and graphs), because that’s how I’ll be getting my point across to clients. Avinash Kaushik says that the best visualizations come from:
“1) a deep understanding of the goal / objectives 2) from thinking beyond what standard trend lines or stacked bar graphs can provide.”
I tried to emphasize my points in my last 2 web analytics reports for the Burke through varied and clear charts and graphs, but I haven’t gotten feedback yet on those. I think the challenge is in making the numbers tangible without inducing death by bar graph. I tend to understand things better through words, so it requires creative thinking for me to not rely on rhetoric.
First day of summer in Seattle.
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