Sarah DeAtley
information + analysis + design
July 14, 2009 at 8:09 am
filed under Data Visualization, Web Analytics
Tagged data visualization, design, excel, mock-ups, reading, reporting, ucd, web analytics
The reason I keep posting about data visualization is not just because I think these things are pretty or interesting, but I think the things you learn about data visualization are directly applicable to reporting in web analytics. People are always decrying the “data puke”, and I’ve seen scorecards that range from Windows 95 looking spreadsheet to graphic designer Excel masterpiece. I am hoping to end up somewhere in the happy medium, where you marry design with data in a way that it helps show the reader what is important and what is actionable.
Definition: A scorecard is a visual display of the most important information needed to achieve one or more objectives, consolidated and arranged on a single screen so the information can be monitored at a glance. Unlike dashboards that display actual values of metrics, scorecards typically display the gap between actual and target values for a smaller number of key performance indicators.
I don’t think Excel was originally envisioned as an application where form matters as much as function, but I’m trying to learn how to manipulate spreadsheets to make them look more attractive. I haven’t found many resources yet on how to do this, but already I see parallels to web design/graphic design. A scorecard is a visual presentation similar to a page in a magazine or a book–maybe it would be useful to take a page from that field and create mock-ups/wireframes in Adobe InDesign or Illustrator before you just start throwing data in?
This would require taking the time to learn the program (which is not going to happen for most), but I do think its worth thinking about it from a designer or information architect’s point of view. For instance, how do people read things online? They scan web pages in a F-format generally, put the most important things along that F shape if you’re sending an online copy of the scorecard. Maybe its too much effort put into something that you just have to get done and not fixate on design, but the designer in me thinks that creating a well-designed scorecard and consciously thinking about how the audience will read it (user-centered design), might help the client understand and agree with you.
I think Shane Atchison might disagree slightly with me. 
Am I completely right/wrong? Let me know.
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A Day of Firsts | Intersections
on July 22, 2009 at 8:39 pm
[...] put into practice what I preach, and created a wireframe (in PPT) of a scorecard based on what I thought would be a good layout. I [...]
ME Sanchez
on July 22, 2009 at 10:25 pm
bravo! nicely put. at the end of the day, when all the data is crunched, what matters is the visual… and, its only worth the decision it supports. the challenge remains to uniformly present the data, the graphic and the notes to allow power brokers to do their job.