Thomas Otter
(photo via flickrstream of addedentry)
So much of our enterprise systems reporting is still locked into the rows and columns model of reporting. Yes, some vendors have oil gauge type dashboards and yapc (yet another pie chart) but I’ve only seen one or two vendors who really think hard about how to change the way data is displayed.
I came across a super web-site this afternoon. (Thanks Claus) It takes a map of the world and changes the sizes of the countries based on different criteria, such as number of cellphones,or this example below women in parliament. (the excellent mappingworlds site is here)
Look how small the US is on the map. This is a powerful way of visualizing data, partly because of the Von Restorff effect. A phenomenon of memory in which noticeably different things are more likely to be recalled than common things. Mapping worlds changes the way the see a common image, the world map. The dissonance is what makes you think and remember.
This TED presentation from Hans Rosling has been watched millions of times. It is a lesson for us all in data visualization data and presenting it.
Imagine if you presented your succession planning data like this? Wouldn’t it have a whole lot more impact? Most of you have years and years of ERP data, why not do something noticeably different with it?
Comments Off
Category: HCM Social Software visualization Tags: visualization reporting
