Lesson 1

Introduction to Visual Analytics

Mentor: Dr. Kam Tin Seong

Associate Professor of Information Systems (Practice)

tskam@smu.edu.sg

Version 1.8.0

Last updated: 30/8/2018

ISSS608 Visual Analytics and Applications

What will you learn from this lesson?

• Motivation of Visual Analytics

• What Visual Analytics is

• The value of Visual Analytics

• Visual Analytics Toolkits

• Visualising and Analysing Univariate Data

ISSS608 Visual Analytics and Applications

Lesson1: Introduction to Visual Analytics

Motivation of Visual Analytics

• The First Crime of Data Visualisation

Source: MINISTRY OF TRADE AND INDUSTRY

STRAITS TIMES GRAPHICS

ISSS608 Visual Analytics and Applications

Lesson1: Introduction to Visual Analytics

Motivation of Visual Analytics

• Data rich, information poor

ISSS608 Visual Analytics and Applications

Lesson1: Introduction to Visual Analytics

Motivation of Visual Analytics

• The impact of volunteered data

ISSS608 Visual Analytics and Applications

Lesson1: Introduction to Visual Analytics

Motivation of Visual Analytics

• The impact of data.gov initiative

ISSS608 Visual Analytics and Applications

Lesson1: Introduction to Visual Analytics

Motivation of Visual Analytics

• The impact of smart nation vision

ISSS608 Visual Analytics and Applications

Lesson1: Introduction to Visual Analytics

Motivation of Visual Analytics

• Everyday data analysts

  • Non-professional statistician

  • Uses spreadsheet as main analytical tool

ISSS608 Visual Analytics and Applications

Lesson1: Introduction to Visual Analytics

Motivation of Visual Analytics

• Excel table : great hammer, lousy screwdriver

ISSS608 Visual Analytics and Applications

Lesson1: Introduction to Visual Analytics

Motivation of Visual Analytics

• Charts should work with you, not against you

ISSS608 Visual Analytics and Applications

Lesson1: Introduction to Visual Analytics

Motivation of Visual Analytics

Data analysis

without

data visualisation

is no

data analysis

ISSS608 Visual Analytics and Applications

Lesson1: Introduction to Visual Analytics

Motivation of Visual Analytics

• When statistics failed!

ISSS608 Visual Analytics and Applications

Lesson1: Introduction to Visual Analytics

Motivation of Visual Analytics

• Analytical graphics reveal the truth

ISSS608 Visual Analytics and Applications

Lesson1: Introduction to Visual Analytics

What is Visual Analytics?

• The science of analytical reasoning facilitated by interactive visual interfaces

• A halfway house: a stopping place on the path from data to decision

Detecting the expected,

discovering the unexpected

ISSS608 Visual Analytics and Applications

Lesson1: Introduction to Visual Analytics

What is Visual Analytics?

• Visual Analytics’ greatest strength is its use for sense-making

When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth

- Sherlock Holmes

ISSS608 Visual Analytics and Applications

Lesson1: Introduction to Visual Analytics

What is Visual Analytics?

• Visual Analytics Framework

ISSS608 Visual Analytics and Applications

Lesson1: Introduction to Visual Analytics

What is Visual Analytics?

• Conceptual view of Visual Analytics

ISSS608 Visual Analytics and Applications

Lesson1: Introduction to Visual Analytics

What is Visual Analytics?

• Visual presentation using Excel chart

ISSS608 Visual Analytics and Applications

Lesson1: Introduction to Visual Analytics

What is Visual Analytics?

• Visual exploration using JMP chart

ISSS608 Visual Analytics and Applications

Lesson1: Introduction to Visual Analytics

What is Visual Analytics?

• Visual Analytics as a knowledge discovery process

ISSS608 Visual Analytics and Applications

Lesson1: Introduction to Visual Analytics

What is Visual Analytics?

• The science of Visual Analytics

ISSS608 Visual Analytics and Applications

Lesson1: Introduction to Visual Analytics

The value of Visual Analytics

• Florence Nightingale (12 May 1820 – 13 August 1910)

ISSS608 Visual Analytics and Applications

Lesson1: Introduction to Visual Analytics

The value of Visual Analytics

• The source of cholera outbreak in Soho, England. (John Snow, 1854).

ISSS608 Visual Analytics and Applications

Lesson1: Introduction to Visual Analytics

Visual Analytics toolkits

• Commercial-off-the-shelf
  • Stand alone
  • Data visualisation developer toolkits
• Open-source
  • Stand alone
  • Data visualisation API library

ISSS608 Visual Analytics and Applications

Lesson1: Introduction to Visual Analytics

Visual Analytics toolkits

• Commercial-off-the-shelf

ISSS608 Visual Analytics and Applications

Lesson1: Introduction to Visual Analytics

Visual Analytics toolkits

• Introducing Tableau

ISSS608 Visual Analytics and Applications

Lesson1: Introduction to Visual Analytics

Visual Analytics toolkits

• Tableau platforms

ISSS608 Visual Analytics and Applications

Lesson1: Introduction to Visual Analytics

Visualisng and Analysing Univariate Data

• Distribution analysis

  • Part-to-whole

  • Statistical distribution

• Deviation analysis

ISSS608 Visual Analytics and Applications

Lesson1: Introduction to Visual Analytics

Visualisng and Analysing Univariate Data

• Characteristics of univariate data

  • Categorical

  • Continuous

ISSS608 Visual Analytics and Applications

Lesson1: Introduction to Visual Analytics

Distribution analysis of categorical data

• Save the Pies for Dessert

  • Pie charts force us to compare either 2-D areas formed by each slice or the angles formed by each where the slices meet in the centre

  • Segment too small to be labelled

ISSS608 Visual Analytics and Applications

Lesson1: Introduction to Visual Analytics

Distribution analysis of categorical data

• Bar chart came to the rescue

ISSS608 Visual Analytics and Applications

Lesson1: Introduction to Visual Analytics

Distribution analysis of categorical data

• Pareto chart

ISSS608 Visual Analytics and Applications

Lesson1: Introduction to Visual Analytics

Distribution analysis of continuous data

• Beyond single descriptive statistic

ISSS608 Visual Analytics and Applications

Lesson1: Introduction to Visual Analytics

Distribution analysis of continuous data

• Introducing Boxplot

ISSS608 Visual Analytics and Applications

Lesson1: Introduction to Visual Analytics

Distribution analysis of continuous data

• Interpretation of a Boxplot

ISSS608 Visual Analytics and Applications

Lesson1: Introduction to Visual Analytics

Distribution analysis of continuous data

•  Comparing multiple boxplot

ISSS608 Visual Analytics and Applications

Lesson1: Introduction to Visual Analytics

Deviation Analysis

• Examining how one or more sets of values deviate from a reference set of values

ISSS608 Visual Analytics and Applications

Lesson1: Introduction to Visual Analytics

Deviation Analysis

• A Tale of Deviation Charts

ISSS608 Visual Analytics and Applications

Lesson1: Introduction to Visual Analytics

Deviation Analysis

• Working with reference line

ISSS608 Visual Analytics and Applications

Lesson1: Introduction to Visual Analytics

Deviation Analysis

• Working with reference region

ISSS608 Visual Analytics and Applications

Lesson1: Introduction to Visual Analytics