Database Reference
In-Depth Information
Figure 12.16
Forty-five years of store opening data
Even showing somewhat less data is still difficult to read through for most people.
Figure 12.17
hides the first 10 years, leaving 35 years of data in the table.
Figure 12.17
Thirty-five years of store opening data
As most readers will observe, it is challenging to make sense of data, even at
relatively small scales. There are several observations in the data that one may
notice, if one looks closely at the data tables:
• BigBox experienced strong growth in the 1980s and 1990s.
• By the 1980s, BigBox began adding more SuperBox stores to its mix of
chain stores.
• SuperBox stores outnumber BigBox stores nearly 2 to 1 in aggregate.
Depending on the point trying to be made, the analyst must take care to organize
the information in a way that intuitively enables the viewer to take away the same
main point that the author intended. If the analyst fails to do this effectively,
the person consuming the data must guess at the main point and may interpret
something different from what was intended.
Figure 12.18
shows a map of the United States, with the points representing the
geographic locations of the stores. This map is a more powerful way to depict data
than a small table would be. The approach is well suited to a sponsor audience.
This map shows where the BigBox store has market saturation, where the company
has grown, and where it has SuperBox stores and other BigBox stores, based on the
color and shading. The visualization in
Figure 12.18
clearly communicates more
effectively than the dense tables in
Figure 12.16
and
Figure 12.17
.
For a sponsor
audience, the analytics team can also use other simple visualization techniques to
portray data, such as bar charts or line charts.
