BY ALEX PIERRATOS – DATA SCIENTIST
As a data scientist, I naturally spend a lot of time visualizing data. This includes exploratory techniques for my own work, one-off graphics for presentations, and dynamic tools that allow a user to explore their data interactively.
There are two audiences for whom I create these visualizations – myself and others. Obvious, I know, but this fact needs reiterating. No matter how good you think a dashboard, report or other visualization is, they are only as good as your audience thinks they are.
If you’re happy with a visualization you created for yourself, your audience is happy! However, any time you create a visualization for an external audience, you must try to make it as easy to digest as possible. This is a direct application of a concept in one of my favorite books: Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahnemen. If you have not yet read this book, put it on your list!
Kahnemen tackles a concept known in Psychology as “Dual Process Theory.” The short of his interpretation of it is this:
System 1 is synonymous with one’s subconscious. It is the part of the brain involved with fast and automatic processing, requiring little energy to activate. The types of reasoning used by this system are impacted greatly by emotions and intuition.
Take driving a car for example. Imagine you’re driving on a road and suddenly a deer jumps in front of your car. What does your brain do? Before you’re even able to think to yourself “There’s a deer, I need to slam on the brakes!” you’ve already done it. Fear of hitting the deer activates your system 1 and immediately you make the decision to stop.
System 2 is the part of the brain that requires a lot of energy to activate and it carries out complex reasoning that the subconscious is unable to do. This area of the brain analyzes situations you have never been exposed to by using calculated reasoning techniques. It can be “painful” to use System 2 as it requires complete focus.
Now, you’re taking an exam (first a deer, now an exam? This is not your day…). To pass the exam, you probably have to activate System 2, unless you managed to get a copy of the test beforehand or you have a photographic memory. To answer problems, your decision-making doesn’t really come from intuition and emotions – it comes from analytical reasoning. Making these decisions using System 2 is a much slower and more painstaking process.
Dashboards, graphics and other visualizations should activate the brain in a similar fashion to how it is activated in the deer scenario. Not by fear, of course, but by allowing the audience to mostly use System 1 to understand the message a visual is trying to convey. Visualizations are supposed to make things easier – the audience shouldn’t feel like they’re taking an exam. Why should they have to use their System 2?
If your audience has to use their System 2 to understand a visual, you may lose their attention. If they consistently struggle to understand what you create, you may lose their business.
Think Fast!
BY ALEX PIERRATOS – DATA SCIENTIST
As a data scientist, I naturally spend a lot of time visualizing data. This includes exploratory techniques for my own work, one-off graphics for presentations, and dynamic tools that allow a user to explore their data interactively.
There are two audiences for whom I create these visualizations – myself and others. Obvious, I know, but this fact needs reiterating. No matter how good you think a dashboard, report or other visualization is, they are only as good as your audience thinks they are.
If you’re happy with a visualization you created for yourself, your audience is happy! However, any time you create a visualization for an external audience, you must try to make it as easy to digest as possible. This is a direct application of a concept in one of my favorite books: Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahnemen. If you have not yet read this book, put it on your list!
Kahnemen tackles a concept known in Psychology as “Dual Process Theory.” The short of his interpretation of it is this:
System 1 is synonymous with one’s subconscious. It is the part of the brain involved with fast and automatic processing, requiring little energy to activate. The types of reasoning used by this system are impacted greatly by emotions and intuition.
Take driving a car for example. Imagine you’re driving on a road and suddenly a deer jumps in front of your car. What does your brain do? Before you’re even able to think to yourself “There’s a deer, I need to slam on the brakes!” you’ve already done it. Fear of hitting the deer activates your system 1 and immediately you make the decision to stop.
System 2 is the part of the brain that requires a lot of energy to activate and it carries out complex reasoning that the subconscious is unable to do. This area of the brain analyzes situations you have never been exposed to by using calculated reasoning techniques. It can be “painful” to use System 2 as it requires complete focus.
Now, you’re taking an exam (first a deer, now an exam? This is not your day…). To pass the exam, you probably have to activate System 2, unless you managed to get a copy of the test beforehand or you have a photographic memory. To answer problems, your decision-making doesn’t really come from intuition and emotions – it comes from analytical reasoning. Making these decisions using System 2 is a much slower and more painstaking process.
Dashboards, graphics and other visualizations should activate the brain in a similar fashion to how it is activated in the deer scenario. Not by fear, of course, but by allowing the audience to mostly use System 1 to understand the message a visual is trying to convey. Visualizations are supposed to make things easier – the audience shouldn’t feel like they’re taking an exam. Why should they have to use their System 2?
If your audience has to use their System 2 to understand a visual, you may lose their attention. If they consistently struggle to understand what you create, you may lose their business.
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