Webb Insights: Business & Technology

In a previous post,  I explored the paradox of Analytics, Visualization and Communication. At the end, I teased the best way to do this is thoughtful design. I asked the question:   What's important?  Do my users know? How will they know? Design is fundamentally a purposeful application of context that helps people understand and use things. That's it. When it comes to data visualization, this often means helping users understand, WHAT?   Another question to ask yourself is actually, SO WHAT?  That's right - why does this matter? Why is this relevant? This analysis should be meaningful to someone. In a business context, your analysis should be effective and touch an organizational value chain, such as customer retention, supply chain, profitability, brand sentiment, etc. That "WHAT" should be a critical component of why you put the visualization together - so don't lose sight of it. To aid this, here are some questions to prompt thoughtfulness abou

Today's world is focused on the "New" - new ways to communicate, new interfaces, new interactions, and new technologies. We continue to innovate with things, but in this constant race, it's easy to forget about humanity - about empathy - about communicating simply, and concisely. One of the biggest buzzwords lately is "Analytics." In honor of this post, let me quickly define what I'm talking about: Analytics: A process and result of describing, interrogating, and understanding information. Types of analytics include: Network and Relationship Segmentation / Clustering Behavior Geospatial Prediction and Simulation Text and Unstructured Visualization: An art-form we use to communicate insightful information. For the examples above, let's look at the 2018 Olympics, which, at the time of this writing, are taking place. Below are some types of analytics, with an example of how they might be visualized. Networks and Relationship