Comments on: Data Visualization: Who Needs a Reality Check?

By: Paul

Paul — Sun, 14 Dec 2008 12:32:28 +0000

I have just re-written an excel weekly report that I inherited (that was basically several tables of data) into a dashboard format. It is slick, clear and the simple uncluttered graphs instantly give the overall picture. It is a million times better now. I have to say dashboards do it for me.

By: Jacob

Jacob — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 17:49:32 +0000

We considered using Tableau at my organization, and I would love to see a review of some of the higher end visualization tools. After evaluating the Tableau software, however, I came to this conclusion: Tableau would save me time in implementing dashboards for our management team. However, 99% of time, the information that management needs is from the same report. Build it once, and suddenly Tableau seems like a waste of money. (This depends on the size of your organization of course, but is a valid consideration at any level.) Similarly, as mentioned in the About the blog, management skills are often too low to filter, sort, analyze, and charts the information that they need. Higher-end visualization tools, simple enough for managers to use, seem to be appropriate for some audience between management and a business analyst. What organizations are they targeting? What individuals in those organizations? Finally, to be frank, I can't think of a single thing that Tableau can do that I can't do in Excel. I'd love an example that proves me wrong.

By: Roni

Roni — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 10:22:27 +0000

I agree. People need meaningful data representation, nothing fancy. They need a pre defined report they can share with their co-workers. Not a piece of art.

By: Tomas Greif

Tomas Greif — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 15:56:26 +0000

Reality check:
People are not looking for charts, but for answers. This is what all have in common – analysts, managers, … We are using complicated techniques because we are not able to find easy ones or we are using simple techniques because we do not know how to do better. In my opinion the ultimate goal is to achieve simplicity through complexity. That day we will have a solution which will provide us with more answers and less charts.

By: jerome cukier

jerome cukier — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 13:47:24 +0000

@admin: I concur.
Tableau is not a cure for Excel. Both products are complementary. I guess many people work on Excel data in Tableau and export the results back in Excel.
In Chabot’s talk he produced a chart comparing the number of users of different software products. they are at 10k users right now. Products like photoshop have over 1m users, and Excel or Acrobat reader, over 100m.
So Excel is a de facto standard for the time being, and can do many things. Tableau’s approach is not to say, our product can make things that Excel cannot (which I think is true nonetheless) but rather to say, preparing your data to make your report in Excel took you an hour and a half, and you could have done that in minutes with Tableau.

By: admin

admin — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 11:00:36 +0000

Jon: and remarkably well, if I may add…

By: Jon Peltier

Jon Peltier — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 04:19:00 +0000

“you can do it in Excel; here is how”

This is the approach I’m trying to take.