Alice’s Adventures in Reporting ServicesPresenter: Jen Stirrup, Contact: jenstirrup@jenstirrup.comSQLBits VIISaturday 2nd October, 2010

Agenda

• Business Intelligence and the Red Queen’s Race• ‘you want to get somewhere… you must run at least twice as fast

as that!’

Agenda

• Business Intelligence and the Red Queen’s Race• ‘you want to get somewhere… you must run at least twice as fast

as that!’

• Business Intelligence and Alice’s Question• ‘What is the use of a book, without pictures?’

Agenda

• Business Intelligence and the Red Queen’s Race• ‘you want to get somewhere… you must run at least twice as fast

as that!’

• Business Intelligence and Alice’s Question• ‘What is the use of a book, without pictures?’

• Practical Applications – the Doorknob • ‘Read the directions and directly you will be directed in the right

direction.’

• Over to you!

Reporting and the Red Queen

Reporting and the Red Queen

Why not just tables?Zimbabwean inflation rates (official) since independenceDate Rate Date Rate Date Rate Date Rate Date Rate Date Rate

1980 7% 1981 14% 1982 15% 1983 19% 1984 10% 1985 10%

1986 15% 1987 10% 1988 8% 1989 14% 1990 17% 1991 48%

1992 40% 1993 20% 1994 25% 1995 28% 1996 16% 1997 20%

1998 48% 1999 56.9% 2000 55.22% 2001 112.1% 2002 198.93% 2003 598.75

%

2004 132.75% 2005 585.84

% 2006 1,281.11% 2007 66,212.

3% 2008231,150,888.87% (July)

Thinking with your Eyes

Stages of Processing

Stages of Processing

Pre-attentive Attributes

Attribute Example Assumption

Spatial Position

2D Grouping2D Position

Sloping to the right = Greater

Form LengthWidthOrientationSize

Longer = GreaterHigher = Greater

Colour HueIntensity

Brighter = GreaterDarker = Greater

Pre-attentive Attributes

Attribute Example Graph Type

Spatial Position

2D Grouping2D Position

Line Graph

Form LengthWidthOrientationSize

Bar Chart

Colour HueIntensity

Scatter Chart

Stages of Processing

Visual Integration

•Chartjunk•Data/Ink Ratio

Mobilising Visual Integration

•Affordance • Highlighting – bright colours• Increasing Intensity = Increasing

Values• Eye Tracking Studies• Eye Path going from cluster to legend,

and back again (Ratwani, 2008)

Mobilising Visual Integration

• Sequential Palettes

•Diverging Palettes

• Qualitative Palettes

Visual Integration

Stages of Processing

Cognitive Integration

•Building an understanding of the graph•Eye Tracking Studies•Eye Path going from cluster to cluster, rather than cluster to legend (Ratwani, 2008)

Cognitive Integration

•Summary first•Zoom and filter•Then details ‘on-demand’

• (Schneiderman, 1999)

Cognitive Integration

•Comparison•Sorting•Bookmarks – analytical view of browsing

Mobilising Cognitive Integration•Humans are not good at judging:•2D Area•Angles

Mobilising Cognitive Integration•Humans are not good at judging:•2D Area•Angles•Pie Charts and Gauges rely on these characteristics…

Lost Finale: Mins Breakdown

Bullet Chart

Text Label Bar to display Performance measure

Marker to display Comparative measure

Bar Chart Example - Original

Dot Plot Example

Bullet Graph Example

Summary

•Reporting and the Red Queen’s Race•Three Stages of Processing•Some Practical Suggestions!•Over to you!

Contact Details

• jenstirrup@jenstirrup.com•Twitter.com/jenstirrup

Coming up…P/X001Understanding and Preventing SQL Injection AttacksKevin KlineP/L001SSIS FieldnotesDarren GreenP/L002The (Geospatial) Shapes of Things to ComeSimon MunroP/L005End to End Master Data Management with SQL Server Master Data ServicesJeremy KashelP/T007Understanding Microsoft Certification in SQL ServerChris Testa-O'Neill

#SQLBITS

References• Information Visualisation, Perception For Design, Second Edition, Colin

Ware, Morgan Kaufmann Publishers, San Francisco CA. • Cleveland, W.S. The elements of graphing data. Wadsworth Advanced

Books and Software, Monterey, Canada, 1985• Treisman, A. Features and Objects in visual processing. Scientific American,

255(2): 114 - 125, 1986 • Navigation-related structural change in the hippocampi of taxi drivers,

MacGuire et al 1999• Chartjunk image used 80 4-point "ley lines" pass through 137 random

points. Original raster image by The Anome, vectors by Mysid. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ley_lines.svg for details. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

References• Raj M. Ratwani, J. Gregory Trafton, Deborah A. Boehm-Davis (2008).

Thinking graphically: Connecting vision and cognition during graph comprehension. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, 14 (1), 36-49 DOI:

• Stuart K. Card, Jock D. Mackinlay, and Ben Shneiderman, Readings in Information Visualization: Using Vision to Think, Academic Press, San Diego, California, 1999, quoting a research paper by Kumar, Plaisant, and Shneiderman.)

• Visual Explanations, Edward Tufte (1997)