Practical Tableau

Chapter 77. Identify the Business Question

The first—and most critical step in the INSIGHT framework for data visualization—is to identify why you are making the data visualization to begin with! As a data visualization practitioner in a corporate environment, I call this step “Identify the Business Question,” but the concept can be applied to any question you are attempting to answer through visualizing data, whether that’s a business question or just something you’re curious about. For example:

• What is contributing to our business growth?

• Where is the best place to get a cup of coffee in Seattle?

• What are the odds of becoming a professional athlete?

It’s incredible to see how often this fundamental step is overlooked in the real world. My theory as for why is that it is becoming increasingly easy to access data and it can be tempting to look at too much at one time. While it may sound convenient to put every number you care about on a single dashboard, this approach typically does more harm than good.

By having a single business question in mind going into a data visualization design, you set yourself and your end users up for success by providing a clear purpose for the dashboard. Furthermore, most times it’s appropriate to literally state the question to open a dashboard. This not only provides a purpose, but gives you an opportunity to frame what end users will ...