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How often do you get data that needs to be charted or graphed only to find out some of the data’s missing? We see it all the time. However, just because it’s missing, doesn’t mean you can ignore it. You need to know how to make it consistent, how to deal with it if it is missing, or sometimes even how to recover it. In this 9:12 video, the fourth in our series on well-formed data for charts & graphs, we cover:
types of missing data
differences between incomplete, space, blank/null, and 0 data
dealing with missing text
dealing with missing numbers
dealing with implied data
Let [...]
Our lives are made up almost exclusively of relationships and that includes data. In fact, it’s hard to think of examples of data that doesn’t involve a relationship. Customers (hopefully) have many Orders. Companies have multiple employees. People (hopefully) have multiple friends, who also have multiple friends, and may even share some of each others friends. People may have multiple phone numbers, e-mail addresses, and so on.
Admittedly, this may be the geekiest of topics on creating well-formed data. In part 3 of our 4 part series, we discuss one way to make sure your data follows the ”1 Concept per Row” [...]
Continuing our series on preparing data for analysis & visualization, we’ve just released the next video on concatenation and extraction. The ability to break data apart and put it back together in new ways is essential to preparing data. By storing data at the lowest sensible level, it can be used separately or combined with other data for interesting analysis and visualization. In this practical video, we discuss 6 key Excel functions for extraction including left(), mid(), right(), search(), len(), and trunc().
Check out this 9:57 video to learn how to take the next step in preparing your data for analysis [...]
Data visualization and analysis are powerful tools for discovering and communicating stories held in your data. However, before most of today’s data visualization tools can be used effectively, the data must be cleaned, organized and prepared. Over the next 4 videos, I’ll be discussing how to prepare your data to be visualized. The first step in the process is consistency. Consistency is made up of 4 principles:
One Concept per Row
One Data Type per Column
One Format per Data Type
Using the Lowest Sensible Level
Check out this 9:43 video to begin the most important step in preparing your data:
In the next 3 videos, we’ll continue the discussion [...]
Do you ever have to give the presentation to the executive where you’ve only got 5 minutes so you boil your presentation down to the core message, but you know you’ll get asked a (seemingly random) question about a slide? So you debate, do you put the supporting slides (details, data, sources, etc) in the main flow? Do you add them at the end? Do you keep them in a separate presentation? Do you hide them? If you do, how do you get to them quickly, easily, and in a way that makes it look like you anticipated their needs?
Ever have an [...]
In a recent post by Nathan from FlowingData, he does a great job of explaining how to interactive area charts. For the average person, though, his approach requires a lot of existing knowledge…Flash, Flex, coding, etc. So, I wanted to create a version that most people could create and use with NO coding required. For all the grief (often deserved) that Microsoft gets, there’s actually a lot of power in the Office suite, and Excel is no exception.
In the following 3 videos, I cover how to create an interactive area chart in Excel without coding. While I use Excel 2007, [...]
Some people would definitely think the process of creating a visual is some form of magic requiring some ability to conjure something from nothing. The myth of left brain/right brain reinforces the false notion that creativity is something that only belongs to a special, magical few. The reality is that, like magic, there is a science to visualization, that it can be learned, it requires practice, and anyone can do it!
Last week, I attended the presentation of Jamy Ian Swiss, magician extraordinaire, at the Penny W. Stamps Distinguished Visitor Series at the University of Michigan‘s School of Art & Design. Followers of visual [...]
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