Fundamentals of Data Visualization: Building More Effective Charts and Business Intelligence Dashboards

Mini Tutorial
Thursday, November 12, 2015 - 11:00am-12:30pm

John Mechalas, Intel Corp.

John Mechalas, Intel Corp.

John has worked for Intel since 1994, spending most of those years as a UNIX systems administrator and systems programmer, supporting a large design engineering environment, web and database servers, and UNIX and Windows integration. He is now an application engineer working primarily with security technologies. John lives near Portland, Oregon, with his wife, dogs, and cats. In his free time, he does photography and performs improvisational comedy.

BibTeX
@conference {208705,
author = {John Mechalas},
title = {Fundamentals of Data Visualization: Building More Effective Charts and Business Intelligence Dashboards},
year = {2015},
address = {Washington, D.C.},
publisher = {USENIX Association},
month = nov,
}
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Description: 

Learn best practices in data visualization, with a focus on creating more effective charts, graphs, and information dashboards when presenting quantitative data. The tutorial will begin with a brief foundation in visual theory and the physiology of vision, which will serve as the basis for recommended chart designs and styles. Learn how to clearly and most effectively display data while avoiding pitfalls that misrepresent data or confuse the reader. The tutorial will then extend the discussion to information system dashboards, briefly examining issues in layout and clarity in order to improve display efficiency and provide more effective at-a-glance views.

Who should attend: 

This tutorial is for anyone who has to present static charts or graphs of numerical data, whether it be to end users, co-workers or managers, or who is responsible for selecting and deploying business intelligence dashboard systems.

Take back to work: 

Attendees will learn best practices in data visualization, learn recommended chart and graph types (including which charts and graphs to avoid), and best practices in creating effective information system dashboards.

Topics include: 
  • Visual theory and the physiology of vision
  • How to describe data
  • Principles of chart design
  • A taxonomy of charts: good, bad, and ugly
  • Common charting problems
  • BI (Business Intelligence) dashboards