Juice Analytics

Most dashboards just talk and don’t listen. Have you ever been in a “conversation” with someone and they talk 90% of the time. They ask you a question and while you’re 15 seconds into answering they interrupt and starting offloading their mountains of insight. It’s mostly about them. And their consideration for you? Not so much.

That is what most dashboards do. Blah, blah, blah. What if…

What if the information presentations we interacted with actually acknowledged who they’re talking to, listened more, and talked less? What if we were to replace the focus on data with a conversation and a way of working out the complexities of data between two or more people.

To do this properly, think about what a “good conversation” is. Here are a few characteristics we came up with:

• The people have similar experience around a topic; so they know what they’re talking about, but because every person is unique, they’ve gathered unique insight that can be shared. The varying, educated perspective keeps the conversation interesting.
• The one doesn’t overly interrupt the other. Sure there may be reasons to interrupt here and there, but, if interruption is the norm, it quickly gets as annoying (and rude) as your cable news political analyst.
• There is a sense of genuine care for what the other person is saying because, well… there is a genuine sense for what the other person is saying. Too often people get caught up in the “tricks” of networking and small talk and “the hook.” What if people actually respond to what’s genuine?
• Distractions are minimal. One person isn’t constantly checking their phone or entertaining other interests. People are very adept at sensing interest. They do this by reading you: body language, eyes, word usage, how you breathe, pace of speech, and inflection to name a few. If you are actually interested in hearing what another else has to say, they will know.
• You trust the other person. There is an assumed authenticity about each other. This is slow to build and easy to break.

So there’s a few qualities of good conversation, but why? People don’t often stop to think about why they enjoy good conversation. Let’s look at the benefits:

• Your perspective is sharpened. You don’t have to live through the same experience the other person did in order to benefit from their insight. That is, if you trust what they are saying. This is a big time saver! Imagine if no one acted on anything but personally experienced information. You may know some people like that. They flounder, spending more time re-discovering rather than benefiting.
• Your momentum is accelerated. Good conversations with trustworthy friends or experts is one of the biggest ways we overcome obstacles and keep momentum in life.
• A dependable relationship is formed. You know if you ever want to talk about “x” topic again, where to turn. As the trust is built in that conversation, you are also setting this person as someone you can turn for solid footing when future steps are required.
• Great conversations lighten your burden. Joking isn’t trivial, in fact, some the most serious conversations benefit from humor. It promotes an open mind and releases misplaced pressure over circumstances.

Now, why is a designer at a visualization, dashboarding, software company talking about all these warm fuzzies?! Presenting information is about people. We’re adamant about that at Juice. We’ve been focusing on what people actually want out of their data for a long time. Why? Because it’s a hole in the market and it’s fundamental to knowing what people both need and want to see out of “information experiences” they encounter. Until we appreciate the qualities and benefits of good conversations, we don’t have a firm foundation for sharing and communicating data.

You’re saying, “Well, that’s all fine and good, but how in the world does this play out in an application or dashboard?.” I’m glad you asked. This concept is something of deep interest at Juice and the thoughts here represent the tip of the iceberg. As we actively work through these concepts, we’ll look to provide practical examples in the coming months.

Questions
What are some of the qualities of an enjoyable conversation you’ve had this week?
How did it affect your day?
In what ways could you imagine your dashboard just talking and not listening?

Dig Deeper
This talk by John Cleese (of Monty Python’s Flying Circus) is one of the best on creativity I’ve ever seen, and it speaks to the seriousness of humor, for the jokesters among you.

Evaluate and apply some related design principles to your application: Make it conversational, Use common language, Consider data comfort and expertise.

(A conversation about data)

The other day my seven year old asked, “How do you say indigo in Japanese?” I said, “Why do you want to know?” His response: “Just curious.”

I love every interaction with my kids, but especially the ones where they surprise me. This particular interaction got me thinking about how tightly linked certain questions are to specific conversations.

When it comes to data, it’s no different. The conversation that surrounds a question is as important as the question itself. Both have context, a set of relevant questions and hopefully a little curiosity. You would think that because of the similarities between data and conversations, that a conversation about data would be easy. Unfortunately, not so much. Every day we see folks wrestling with how to have a conversation about their data.

Think about it. How many “data-based” conversations have you sat through that are REALLY overstuffed Power Point presentations, metric-filled reports or chart-engorged dashboards? Not a conversation, but more like an annoying advertisement. People are so afraid of “The Indigo Question”, that they try to answer EVERY possible question by pommelling their audience with lots and lots of data or worse, innumerable slides.

How about trying this: communicate with data by thinking of it in the context of a conversation: Ask questions; listen to answers; don’t try to cast the conversation before it happens, but allow it to form as it takes place.

Start with understanding the questions that your audience will want to know about your data:

• How has number of bench presses for defensive tackles changed over time?
• Where are my sales coming from?
• Do field goal attempts drive total points per game?

The questions give you great insight into how you would want to show the results. For instance,

Changes over time are shown by trend lines,

comparisons can be shown with distributions,

and outliers might be revealed in a bubble chart.

In the coming months you’ll hear more about the concept of a conversation with data from us. In fact, turning spreadsheets into conversations is something we think can be a transformational way to think about your data.

So, after my son and I got home from running errands that day, we went to Google translate to figure out “How do you say Indigo in Japanese?”: http://translate.google.com/#auto|ja|indigo. This then led us to wonder when would a Japanese person talk about the color indigo or the Indigo plant?  By afternoon both of us walked away from the conversation feeling like we had learned a bunch, cherishing the time spent and looking forward to the next conversation.  After all, isn’t that what we hope to achieve with all our conversations: to feel that sense of reward that makes us anxiously await the next one?

Here’s to great data conversations!

Americans are a painfully conflicted people. We love our TV and movie violence but worry that it ruins our children’s minds. We want to reduce healthcare costs, but don’t want to restrict the free market. We love Justin Bieber, but hate ourselves for loving a Canadian.

Conflicts like these leave little room for a satisfactory answer. Basic principles are in conflict and deeply-rooted desires run up against painful consequences. We don’t want to choose, and the middle ground feels like failure.

The people who practice data analysis and visualization have their own set of immutable conflicts. Do any of these sound familiar?

“My boss wants pie charts, 3D, and lots of bright colors, but…
I know that stuff is a distraction from the message of the data.”

“I love geographic maps and network diagrams, but…
it is hard to see patterns or find insights from these types of visualizations.”

In a sense, each of these conflicts represents an opportunity to innovate to solve a persistent problem in our data viz and analysis business. Find a way to satisfy the initial desire without suffering the assumed consequence, and you’ve got a chance to delight users of data.

It’s over. The people have spoken and their voice is loud and clear. Google Search is the champ. Google’s mission: “to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful”. Now they can add a subtitle, “ha ha, iPhone”.

Google Search knocked out a who’s who in the Gadget space. Let’s look at how they got the win.

Round 1: The Flip camera (93-7)
Round 2: Kindle (85-15)
Round 3: iPod (81-19)
Round 4: GPS (55-45)
Semifinals: Amazon Store (71-29, where do we go to get all those gadgets)
Finals: iPhone (75-25)

Google Search’s closest matchup was against the surprisingly popular GPS, which is fitting since they both ensure you’re never lost.

Want to explore more? Check out our updated results tool and see how gender, age, and geekology affected each round.

Want a copy of the bracket for your wall? Grab one here.

We hope you enjoyed the tournament as much as we did. There are a few technologies, tools, and toys that we regret missing (Wifi, Dropbox) but maybe they’ll show up next year.

I need your help. I want to ask my wife if she’d like to go see a movie with me. Which way do you think I should go:

Option 1:

“Interested in catching the 7PM showing of Hunger Games at the AMC?”

Option 2:

Time: 7PM

Movie: Hunger Games

Location: AMC

Attend?

Well, we both know the answer: she might be inclined to take me up on my offer either way, but with the second option, she might also be inclined to make me sit on a different row.

We know that when we talk to people, we have to do so in a way that feels warm and personal. Why is it then, that when we design systems for people, we want to woo them with option 2?

Imagine a sales report where you select a date range, the type of transaction you are interested in and the resulting metrics. It might look something like this:

Start date: 1/15/2012

End date: 4/2/2012

Type of transaction: Closed deals

Revenue: $1,500,000.

Number of deals: 6

On the other hand, why don’t we treat these sort of data interactions more personable; more like a conversation? Take that same report and re-imagine it in the metaphor of a sentence. Something perhaps like this:

Between 1/15/2012 and today, there have been 6 deals that closed, totaling $1.5m in revenue.

Nifty? We think so. To see some examples and learn more, check out this latest addition to our design principles library.

Here’s to treating people like… well, um… people!

It’s been a long road. A road fraught with jubilation. A road fraught with tears. A road fraught with… well, you get the idea.

Now we have the final two. It is iPhone over Wikipedia and Google Search over Amazon Store. And not even close:

(click to see the semi-finals results)

So, who will take it all? Will it be iPhone or Google Search on the throne:

(click to see and download a larger version)

Now vote! Remember, your picks should be based on:

• influence: changed how we thought about a problem and future technology solutions
• innovative: new and different, why didn’t I think of that?
• adoption: pervasive, widely used

You can vote for your favorites on the Technology Bracketology championship game. We’ll report on the championship results on Tuesday, April 3rd. Stay tuned!

iPhone. Wikipedia. Google Search. Amazon Store. Now it gets interesting. The winners from each of the four regions, pitted against each other. Nerds versus Dweebs; Geeks versus Dorks. What could be more exciting? (It reminds me of that time in high school when the chess club ambushed the french horns behind the bleachers: lots of broken glasses and mechanical pencils.)

Here are the results from Round 4:

(Round 4 results - region champions)

And here’s the updated bracket:

(The final four! Click to download a copy)

Now vote! Remember, your picks should be based on:

• influence: changed how we thought about a problem and future technology solutions
• innovative: new and different, why didn’t I think of that?
• adoption: pervasive, widely used

You can vote for your favorites on the Technology Bracketology Round 5. We’ll report on Round 5 results on Saturday, March 31st, and we’ll run the final championship round on Monday April, 2nd!

Feel like the NCAA tournament is going stale, with the same teams advancing every year? Technology Bracketology is the cure for what ails you. This weekend saw four upsets in eight games. It was a strong weekend for Google as 3 of their products made the final eight. The big story is Cinderella Google Maps who has crushed every foe thus far, but faces behemoth iPhone this week.

Now it’s time to get down to business and vote for the Technology Bracketology final four.

Here are the results from Round 3:

(Click to see the round 3 results)

Here are the 8 who want to be 4:

(Round 4 bracket - click to download your own copy)

You know the drill: now it’s time to vote!! Don’t forget to pick your winners based on:

• influence: changed how we thought about a problem and future technology solutions
• innovative: new and different, why didn’t I think of that?
• adoption: pervasive, widely used

You can vote for your favorites on the Technology Bracketology Round 4. We’ll report on Round 4 results on Thursday, March 29th.

Clad in neon green from their jerseys to their shoes, the Baylor Bears advanced to the South Regional finals in the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament last night, leading by as many as 18 points in a game that was pretty hard to watch. Literally.

Can Color Create a Competitive Advantage?

Spectators had lots to say about Baylor in the Georgia Dome last night, but instead of commenting about their talent, skill and ball handling, most people talked about the obnoxious neon “green” color that the Bears and their fans were wearing. Their neon green uniforms (think “tennis ball” yellow) made it nearly impossible to keep your eyes off of them — yet for many of us, was a complete distraction from the game itself.

As I tried to watch, I thought about the critical role that color plays in the communication of data and information. By highlighting certain details with color, we choose to draw attention to them or put greater emphasis on them. At the same time, color has the potential to confuse or distract our audience if the color we select conflicts with the message or purpose we have in mind.

Can color impact outcomes, giving one team a greater (and perhaps unfair) advantage over another? Could the Baylor Bear’s neon uniforms be playing a part in their success?

What are your thoughts?

For more on color and tips for your next presentation, design or data visualization, see “Color Has Meaning”.

What could be possibly sweeter than Juice? The Technology Bracketology Sweet 16, of course! And oh! how sweet it is!

The 64 became 32; who became 16. Sixteen technologies that have turned their competitor’s lemonade into lemons. Check it out:

(Sweet Round 2 results - no sugar added)

Here are a couple of games that we found particularly interesting:

Number 2 seed iTunes came out on top of 10 seeded Pandora, but not by as much as we might have expected. Pandora clinched a full 39% of the votes. Cool.

The truly amazing story was how much number 5 seeded GPS crushed number 4 seeded Twitter with 88% of the votes. (Hmmm… sounds like a sweet tweet in the making.)

So, here comes round 3:

(Bracket ready for round 3)

Now it’s time to have at it and vote for your favorite 8! Don’t forget to pick your winners based on:

• influence: changed how we thought about a problem and future technology solutions
• innovative: new and different, why didn’t I think of that?
• adoption: pervasive, widely used

You can vote for your favorites on the Technology Bracketology Round 3. We’ll report on Round 3 results on Monday, March 25th.

And the 16 shall become 8. Sweet!

(By the way we couldn’t help but to point out our favorite comment from one of our voters: “I think that Juice needs to acquire one of the 1st, 2nd and 3rd place winners of the tourney and get a group picture with said winners.” Thanks for your feedback. We’ll get right on that!)