

Good Old Excel is the Ultimate Data Visualization Tool - cyrillevincey
http://insights.qunb.com/good-ol-excel-is-the-ultimate-data-visualization-tool-in-most-cases

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peatmoss
They succeeded in demonstrating their alternate thesis that Excel can be made
to look less bad than default Excel. However, that is a lot of clicking for
some cookie cutter visualizations.

I would posit that an "ultimate" visualization tool would allow me to
exploratorily map aspects of my data to various aesthetic properties of the
plot, such as size, color, shape, and transparency. I'd also expect to be able
to get something reasonably close to publication quality straight out of the
software without a whole bunch of tweaks.

I was hoping that this post would show me something about visualization
workflow or extensions they'd written to ease some of the old pain points. As
it is, they lead with a statement that is pretty laughable if we compare to
ggplot2 or Tableau.

~~~
cyrillevincey
ggplot2 and Tableau are high-end tools, meant for experts. My intent here is
to show that an average organization can do a pretty good job with the tools
they _already_ have. The data discovery tech we're baking will actually
totally simplify the way people visualize / discover their data. But until
it's shipped, I'm just claiming people can use excel. Thanks anyway for your
comment.

~~~
peatmoss
And I can appreciate that, though you can see why the sensational title might
confuse someone on the intent.

Also, I'd argue that Tableau doesn't require any particular expertise beyond
what is required for Excel. Though Tableau isn't my preferred tool, I've seen
great results come from total novices. It has the side benefit of sneakily
training people to "think beyond the canned" and to develop novel
visualizations that may better get to the heart of the relationships present
in the data.

I get it that ggplot2 requires some minimal coding ability, however I've also
seen good (i.e. superior to stock excel) results come out of never-before-
coded grad students in an only nominally quantitative discipline. Certainly
the business people who power our economy and command great sums of wealth are
capable of such modest feats?

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cyrillevincey
"Certainly the business people who power our economy and command great sums of
wealth are capable of such modest feats?" => unfortunately no, IMHO. I used to
be a consultant, and I can tell from experience that there's no chance that
any tool like R could possibly penetrate an audience of business people...
Though, I share that dream with you!

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kfk
The problem with Excel is not visualization, it's sharing and updating. If you
want to compete in visualization, look at Power Point, not Excel.

I really look forward the day somebody tackles the issue of sharing/updating
spreadsheets across many users that speak different languages, are in
different countries, etc.

~~~
cyrillevincey
That's our vision at qunb! :)

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pfortuny
Lighting everything is a fashion which will disappear. People need to BE ABLE
to read as FAST as they can. Light fonts are that perk which makes things
'look' great but convey little information.

Otherwise, great and clear ideas.

~~~
cyrillevincey
I think that using gray scales actually focuses the user on more valuable
assets on the data visualization. But you're right, it's also a fashion.
Thanks for your comment.

~~~
pfortuny
Oh, I intended to say "gray color for text" (which makes it less readable) and
got confused, sorry :)

I liked your post a lot, anyway.

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danso
Excel is not at all a bad visualization tool...it's just that the lowest-
common denominator of white-collar types use it, hence, the seemingly many
terrible examples. By the time you're skilled enough to figure out R or D3,
you're less likely to do something completely ugly...often because it's _hard_
to add flair. However, D3 is starting to see way too many people who think
adding force-directed balls is a good visualization, when such an interface is
worse than what most Excel visualizations end up being.

I was hoping the OP would focus on the beauty of the table as a visualization,
something I wish was used more often despite its simplicity.

Tufte's small multiples is a kind of table, and a very effective one. This was
one of my favorite examples he uses in his books, and helped to get Gotti
acquitted:

[http://www.thejuryexpert.com/wp-
content/uploads/gotti.jpg](http://www.thejuryexpert.com/wp-
content/uploads/gotti.jpg)

Here's a modern take by the NYTimes:

[http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/08/24/sports/top-
fin...](http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/08/24/sports/top-finishers-of-
the-tour-de-france-tainted-by-doping.html?_r=0)

~~~
pfortuny
Despite not liking the NYT example (too much clutter to my sight and using
faces conveys little information because they are difficult to match and to
distinguish), I really look forward to an age in which data analysts treat
readers as intelligent and show data as data, not as nice plots.

The problem with charts is twofold:

a) They are very very easily turned into ideological tools.

b) They are very very easily turned into 'kitsch' pastiches made by uninformed
people trying to make beautiful-looking summaries.

Look at the charts here (population density
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_density](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_density)):
is it good or bad to have a population density of >500? Is it even good or bad
to have it at 41-500? What would you have thought if the colors were reversed?
Compare with this one (deforestation
[http://www.cryonie.com/en/world/images/map-
deforestation.jpg](http://www.cryonie.com/en/world/images/map-
deforestation.jpg)): is it good or bad to have forests?

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cochet
"Less is more" : love the spirit :) Nice tips.

