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How to increase visualization maturity

10 August 2020 by Robert Falkowitz 2 Comments

In this series on information visualization, I have sug­gested many techniques for im­prov­ing how we visualize service manage­ment in­for­ma­tion. However, we communicate information via a two-way street. Visualization de­signers could benefit from these techniques, but viewers also need to understand them. How can you increase the visualization maturity of those viewers?

The bias that visu­alizations should be self-explanatory hinders efforts to expand visu­a­li­za­tion tech­niques. After all, if one picture is worth a thousand words, adding a thousand words to explain the picture makes little sense.

As with any form of human com­mun­i­ca­tion, learning its grammar, syntax and semantics enriches the use of the communication medium. We can appreciate music at an ata­vis­tic level. How much more can we appreciate it with an under­stand­ing of harmony, rhythm? We might find a poem beau­ti­ful for the sound of its language. How much more beautiful could it be by knowing something of the meaning and allusions of its words and images. We might appreciate the paintings of Leonardo as pretty pictures. But also knowing the work of his teacher, Verrocchio, shows us Leonardo’s genius. In short, we can com­mun­i­cate at the level of baby talk or we can make efforts to enrich our communications, adding in­sight, economy, beauty and effectiveness.

Building Trust

Developing the maturity of visualization audiences re­quires the audience mem­bers to attend to the visualization.1 In other words, they must pay attention to the visualizations, on the as­sump­tion that they contain useful mes­sages. The more the audience trusts the visu­a­li­za­tion de­sign­er, the more likely will it attend to the visualizations and their messages.

Suppose you were to receive a registered letter from the tax authority. The letter ap­pa­rent­ly requires some action but includes a word you do not under­stand. You will make it your business to learn what that word means and retain that knowledge for future messages. Compare this to the case of opening an un­so­li­cited commercial message where the message obviously intends to sell, not to inform. You will be much less likely to look up any words in that message that you do not understand.

The relationship between trusting the designer of visu­a­li­za­tions and the ma­tur­ity of the visualizations can be either a virtuous cycle or a vicious cycle. If you start on the right foot and from the very beginning provide timely, accurate and use­ful vi­su­a­li­z­ations, your au­di­ence will increasingly trust you. But if you start on the wrong foot, your messages might be ignored. Your communications become in­creas­ingly viewed as SPAM. Perhaps you have seen examples of these phenomena when looking at visualizations of the progression of COVID-19. You tend to return to those visualizations that pro­vide you with the in­for­ma­tion you want in a way that suits your level of understanding. You tend to ignore sources that appear to be untrustworthy.

A key question: how shall we start on the right foot in the journey toward greater trust and greater maturity?

Annotations

A visualization creator might first think to annotate a visualization as a means for explaining it. An­no­ta­tions include:

  • indications  of the im­por­tant data
  • explanations of how to inter­pret the visualization

Only the latter type concerns us here.

Let’s take a simple example. Our vision can easily de­ter­mine if a line is more or less straight. However, our brain has much more difficulty assessing the degrees of curvature. Consider Figs 1 and 2. Can you guess the functions represented by the curves in these two diagrams? Probably not.

tangent function
Fig. 1: Function A shown with linear scales
1 - cosine function
Fig. 2: Function B shown with linear scales

Now consider Figs. 3 and 4. These diagrams represent the same data as in Figs. 1 and 2, but the scale of the Y-axis is logarithmic. If you understand how to interpret a log scale, you would know im­me­di­ate­ly that the curve in Figs. 1 and 3 represents a tangent or ex­po­nen­tial function. The curves in Figs. 2 and 4 unambiguously represent an entirely different function (the function hap­pens to be 1 – cosine).

tangent function log scale
Fig. 3: Function A (see also Fig. 1) shown with vertical log scale
1 - cosine log scale
Fig. 4: Function B (see also Fig. 2) shown with vertical log scale

If you understand how to inter­pret a log scale on a graph, you immediately benefit from using that con­ven­tion. But what per­cen­tage of the vi­su­a­li­za­tion’s audience un­der­stands the use of log scales? If not high, an an­no­ta­tion can help train the audience and explain what the graph depicts (see Fig. 5).

tangent function log scale annotated
Fig. 5: Annotating the visualization to explain the use of a log scale

Before and After Comparisons

We make take a cue from the preceding discussion for the next learning technique. This technique directly compares a “baby-talk” visualization with a more mature visualization that better com­mu­ni­cates the message.

Suppose you wish to illustrate the continuous evolution  of relative proportions of a variety of categories, such as the market share of services used by customers. Doing this with baby-talk graphs, such as bar charts, requires multiple bar charts, one for each point in time (see Fig. 6a). Grouping the bar chart (Fig. 6b) improves the visualization, but it aggregates the data into discrete periods, rather than showing continuous values. A stream­graph makes a more economical visualization of the same data and includes much more information (see Fig. 7). Comparing more than two bar charts challenges cognition. In stream­graphs, viewers see at a glance the growth and waning of each category. The visualization displays data continuously rather than at discrete times. Ideally, streamgraphs should in­ter­active­ly display data values according to the position of the mouse cursor (if the message being com­mun­i­cated requires such data) (see Fig. 8).

If the designer shows the two different versions of the visu­a­li­za­tions side by side, the viewer will quickly realize the many ad­van­tages of the more mature visualization, so long as it com­mu­ni­cates the desired message more effectively. The viewer would need little text to understand the inherent advantages of the one over the other. We seek an “aha!” moment when the scales of lazy tradition fall away from the viewer’s eyes.

barchart time series
Fig. 6a: BEFORE: The designer only knows how to make bar charts and tries to use them to visualize a time series.
grouped bar chart time series
Fig. 6b: BEFORE: The designer figured out how to group by period, but the data vizualization still aggregates the data, rather than displaying it continuously
streamgraph time series
Fig. 7: AFTER: The designer uses a streamgraph to display the continuous evolution of the data over time

Fig. 8: AFTER: Interactive measurements at each point in the chart can provide details.

Training

Formal training in the inter­pre­ta­tion of information visu­a­li­za­tions will probably not stimulate interest. However, formal training in the creation of information visualizations will more interest a pop­u­la­tion of analysts and mana­gers. At the same time, such training will help in­crease the maturity of the population of information visualization viewers.

The value of a formal training program depends on the habits and existing training infra­struc­ture in an or­ga­ni­za­tion. Some or­ga­ni­za­tions maintain a large cata­logue of available courses, often delivered on-line. Or­ga­ni­­za­­tions should encourage employees to follow courses and should recognize their success.

Many of the online training platforms have courses, some being free, on data vi­su­a­li­za­tion. Be aware, how­ever, that some of these courses prin­ci­pal­ly concern the use of specific tools, such as Tableau or even R, to create visualizations. I would strong­ly recommend a more generic study of visualization before learning any tools. Many other courses treat visualization as a discipline subsidiary to the main theme, such as data science, statistics or mar­ket­ing.

However, if the organization lacks a formal training in­fra­struc­ture, informal self-study might be more effective. I hope that my series of articles on in­for­ma­tion vi­su­a­li­za­tions would serve this end. Many of those articles reference standard texts of visualizations which the reader might consult.

Testimonials

Some people will try anything, at least once. Others will dog­ged­ly stick with their ex­ist­ing practices, thinking change is always for the worse. But most people feel too busy to invest in new ways of doing things—unless they have a strong reason to believe a change will be beneficial. Tes­ti­monials help to provide that reason.

A testimonial states how using a certain visu­a­li­za­tion made achiev­ing a goal more ef­fec­tive and/or more ef­fi­cient.

Using the statistical control chart allowed me to iden­tify two un­der­ly­ing prob­lems we never recognized before.

I could replace 12 pie charts with a single heat map, making the weekly usage patterns clear at a glance.

The stream graph showed the evolution of categories, convincing our manager to re­al­lo­cate resources.

Both formal and informal com­mu­ni­ca­tions may include tes­ti­moni­als. They may be written or oral. You might even consider using the sort of visual testimonials that appear as marketing materials: maw­kish perhaps, but effective.

Our customer told us we won the contract thanks, in part, to the visualizations in our offer
Robert S. Falkowitz
Robert Falkowitz
Visualization Designer

Fig. 9: An example of a testimonial

Using testimonials:

  • reinforces leadership skills
  • reduces colleagues’ per­cep­tion of risk
  • encourages the use of more appropriate, more eco­­no­m­i­cal and more ef­fec­tive visu­a­li­za­tions

Getting feedback

Remember that information visu­a­li­za­tions are a form of com­muni­ca­tion. The receiver of a message can provide feedback to the sender to confirm that the message was well-received, un­der­stood and useful.

Organization members should seek to increase incrementally the maturity of their vi­su­a­li­za­tions. Jumping from baby-talk to the most so­phis­ti­cated of visualization might leave the recipients perplexed. Com­mu­ni­ca­tions using con­ven­tions they do not un­der­stand might demotivate them.

Incremental improvement means creating visu­a­li­za­tions only slightly richer and more so­phis­ti­cated than the last ones. If I speak a sentence using six words unknown by my conversational partner, he or she might ignore the message. Using only one unfamiliar word might trigger my partner’s curiosity, who thereby learns a new word. Visualizations are similar. (I am reminded of William Faulkner’s critique of Ernest Hemingway: “He has never been known to use a word that might send a reader to the dictionary.“)

Feedback from the visu­a­li­za­tion recipient to its creator provides the means to assure that improvements remain incremental and comprehensible. Engaged dis­cus­sions about the visu­a­li­za­tions provide the most useful feedback, but such ex­changes are not always practical. Consider using a simple feed­back method, such as providing a 1-10 rating system or a set of “good”, “bad” and “neutral” icons (see Fig. 10). A “1” would mean the recipient has no idea what the visu­a­li­za­tion tries to com­mu­ni­cate. A “10” would mean that the viewer finds the  com­mu­ni­ca­tion as useful and concise as possible (given the level of maturity of the recipient).

force directred graph

Fig. 10: A method for capturing feedback about visualizations.

The visualization creator should probably follow up with recipients providing very low ratings.  Too, the creator should be wary of consistently very high ratings. Too many 10s might indicate that the visualizations are too simple and are not contributing to improving maturity. In short, visualizations should generally be slightly ahead of the developing curve of maturity.

Conclusion

The suggestions made above represent the fruits of my own experience. I do not intend the list to be complete or ex­clu­sive. In­stead, I hope that each or­gan­i­za­tion seeking to increase the maturity of its information visu­a­li­za­tions will experiment, develop and share the methods that work best in its current context.

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International LicenseThe article How to increase visualization maturity by Robert S. Falkowitz, including all its contents, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Notes
1 Dave Snowden (2011) describes the importance of trust more generally within knowledge management. See also https://youtu.be/nTZKVlP2un8
Credits

Unless otherwise indicated here, the diagrams are the work of the author.

Fig. 10: Includes a diagram by Deepthiyathiender – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=45541728

Summary
How to increase visualization maturity
Article Name
How to increase visualization maturity
Description
We communicate information visually via a two-way street. BOth visualization de­signers and viewers must have similar levels of maturity to benefit from visualizations. This article suggest techniques for increasing the overall maturity of visualization techniques in an organizations.
Author
Robert S. Falkowitz
Publisher Name
Concentric Circle Consulting
Publisher Logo
Concentric Circle Consulting

Filed Under: Visualization Tagged With: annotations, before-after, testimonials, training

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  1. Visualization of Configurations | This view of service management... says:
    16 September 2020 at 15:08

    […] of saturation to different tenses or moods (see Figs. M–O). Of course, such a convention would require training to be correctly […]

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