I thought the "graphs" were a good illustration of ups and downs combined with design iterations and user gain/loss cycles. Of course they were abstract but they got the point across.
Does anyone gain anything from these graph visualisations? The first few times I saw one I was impressed, but this one is so huge and nondescript, I think it's impossible to take much away from it. They're kind of like info graphics; you see a few that make sense, but many more are just jumping on the bandwagon.
Sure, bit it's useful to convey some information in graphical form. Many of the constructs he employs (progress circles, use of color gradients to indicate data age) are really good.
The main point being, complex data doesn't have to look ugly.
I'm loving the graphs which for the first time in years are giving me an idea of what an expression is actually doing. Just because the visualization is kept in a form that is easy to understand with a programming background but can also be translated to the expression itself in a straightforward manner.
I didn't find the graphs particularly expressive or clear. It took me a while to figure out what was going on, and even now I'm not 100% sure I understand exactly what they're supposed to be showing me or why it's relevant.
I do agree that data visualization is important, I'm just not sure this is the best example of great data visualization.
Noted. I'm curious about the motivating factor though - would you like the graphs to validate the depth of the data, get you excited with potential possibilities? Or something else?
Good visualizations show trends that would take longer to discover by reading the numbers. They're a lot more user friendly, too.
I think they're a great communication tool between the technical people and everyone else, and it creates a simpler dialog. "Why is there such a big drop in the graph here" "Well, our traffic was lower because..."
I think it's also an emotional/psychological thing. Business people like to see upwards trends! It makes them more confident in the business.
etc. I'm sure there are far more qualified people to answer this.
It's interesting how exposure to certain type of UI/UX can shape our intuition. I see [this type of graph] in Google Analytics on a regular basis, so jumping into this felt very intuitive.
That was a lot of fun. I remember seeing the visualisations from lowest to highest on a bar chart but this gives a different perspective on how the algorithms work.
The key points about the visualizations are twofold:
- They're good, interactive, snappy, and compelling.
- They're general purpose tools backed by real data, where the data is application specific, not the tools.
This is pretty cool. The only problem is that the graphs are slightly unconventional, so people may be put off by them at first.
They may seem less intuitive than other graphs, but it's probably more a matter of familiarity. We understand other graphs so well in part because we've been exposed to them so thoroughly.
Exactly this! It's just a graph describing what happens to data and the abstractions behind the constructs are switchable. UX is especially important here.
Yeah, the real value of this chart from my perspective is the transition from slides 3-4 (watching things go up the first day) and then slides 4-5 (watching some stuff bubble up, and others fall off a cliff). So I found myself just cycling back and forth through slides 3-5 to get a feel for the data. The obvious cool thing to watch is the early-2000's dotcom waterfall.
Nice job. Could probably have represented things slightly better given what you are trying to get across (using colors & ball sizes), but cool nonetheless.
Can you give some examples of actionable insights you've gained from having these graphs? Are you using them in acute problem solving or in longer term prioritization of where to spend effort improving? What does your pipeline look like for trying to drill into more detail for a potentially concerning metric?
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