Map-Based Data Visualization
Beyond the Tyranny of the Spreadsheet
Information Management Special Reports, March 2006
Living in a Visual Culture
We are undeniably a voraciously visual, iconic-inclined, image-inspired society. We "want our MTV" ASAP and our DVDs delivered on demand. We want our Quicktime movies quicker, our realtime movies real fast, and our Flash-movies in a flash. If "seeing is believing," then visualization is the quickest route to understanding.
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"Show me."
"Get the picture?"
"I'm not seeing it."
"I'd like to take a second look."
"Share the vision."
"Let me see."
Why, then, is it assumed that if we want to analyze reams of complex information, the best way to do it is to look at digits in a grid? Tables may be how a computer assimilates information, but the human brain functions very differently. It is estimated that more than two thirds of the population are visual learners, that is, we optimally comprehend and retain information if we can see it.
It's Your Data. See It?
Images are the common vernacular, the Esperanto, if you will, of data. Data is useless if it never crosses the chasm of understanding to become actionable information. Enterprises are literally swimming in data, but relatively limited in their ability to decipher, analyze and act upon the data that they have. One of the lesser-traveled roads between data and information is the use of visualization, in essence, rendering the data in a variety of visual models enabling onlookers to identify correlations, patterns, anomalies and trends.
Data visualization simplifies the presentation of information without stripping it of its depth or integrity. The same information can be presented in a range of visual models, which resonates with how our brains comprehend, store and organize information. The reason that you can remember faces much easier than you can remember telephone numbers is because a significantly larger portion of our brains are dedicated to storing the complex geometric attributes of a human face. Likewise, the brain will more immediately recognize a data anomaly if it is displayed visually (and might be an outlying point on a graph, or a spike in a histogram) as opposed to being buried in a table of hundreds of other numeric values. If a picture is worth a 1,000 words, then a visualization is worth 10,000 spreadsheets.
The same is true for processes, protocols and decision trees. Who really wants to (or does, for that matter) read a 200-page protocol manual in advance? When I need it, give me an interactive flow diagram that guides me through the process at that point in time.
The Persistent Ubiquity of Location
Another related and critical aspect of converting data into actionable information is the matter of location. Everything has got to go somewhere. Physical assets inevitably occupy physical space. Trends and patterns are often tied to areas or regions. For example, sales are down in the Midwest territory, or a higher percentage of accidents have been reported from a particular facility.
It is estimated that 80 percent of enterprise data has a geographic component which is rarely referenced, even though geographic trends and patterns are extremely significant in making intelligent business decisions. In short, if there's a "what," a "when" and a "how many," there's almost always a "where." Location intelligence is built on the assumption that the spatial aspect of data cannot be ignored, and furthermore can facilitate recognition and understanding in attempting to infer meaning and context to data.
Unlocking the LATCH
In his 1989 book Information Anxiety, Richard Wurman put forth the idea of LATCH as the five fundamental ways of organizing information. The acronym reveals that we can organize data by location, alphabet, time, category and hierarchy.
Data can be sorted alphabetically in spreadsheets, and we might use pie charts to display results by category; tables often are used for hierarchies, but primary in LATCH is location and time. Both are fundamental ways we look at our world. We think in terms of space (location) and time.
When you combine the notion of location as a fundamental way of organizing information, with the industry estimate of upwards of 80 percent of all data having a location component, we have a winning technology for both displaying data (a la mapping) and analyzing it.
A New Way to Look at Data
A shortcoming of business intelligence (BI) thus far is its inability to convert data into information which is
- Understandable
- Accessible
- Contextual
- Interactive and
- Actionable
A location intelligence solution helps large companies make better business decisions with their data using map-based data visualization. Instead of just staring at digits on a page, this solution facilitates engaging in a fluent conversation with data; uncovering trends, identifying anomalies and gaining invaluable business insights. Organizations are hungry for ways to enhance the utility of their data by making it:
Contextual: Enable data to be viewed in the context of geography. Every physical asset, product and person occupies space and has a location; therefore, geography is a very intuitive way to organize data.
Accessible: Put data into the hands of the information worker how and when they need it.
Understandable: Think of how many faces you can remember versus how many phone numbers. Data visualization optimizes recognition, comprehension and retention of data trends.
Interactive: Drill down, query and manipulate data using visual tools. Interacting with data can be a two way interaction. Ask your data, "But what if ...?"
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