Win with Advanced Business Analytics: Creating Business Value from Your Data

ENCOURAGE INTERACTION

Every data visualization should encourage interaction and exploration of the data. This will make your data more convincing and will also deepen the understanding among your audience. There are many ways to encourage interaction with the data. The simplest method is to include provocative statements and/or questions on your charts and graphs. For example, if you are creating a chart showing customer loyalty data over time for you and your competitors, and the trend for your company is declining, you could include a question as the title of the chart, “How long does it have to go before we act?” or “Customer loyalty is dropping fast; will we take action?” Another relatively simple way to encourage interaction is to host a live presentation of your findings, record it, and then place it in a controlled online environment, where it can be easily passed around within your organization.

The best way to encourage interaction with your data visualization is to create an online interactive data experience. For example, create a Web-based data tool that allows users to explore different data under different conditions. Returning to our Case-Shiller housing index, the New York Times also has an online data tool whereby a user can click on a specific location within the United States to get information about that area’s local housing trend.13 (The Web address is included in the reference section at the end of this chapter.) This tool enriches the data experience for ...