Head First Data Analysis

Chapter 8. Heuristics: Analyze like a human

The real world has more variables than you can handle.

There is always going to be data that you can’t have. And even when you do have data on most of the things you want to understand, optimizing methods are often elusive and time consuming. Fortunately, most of the actual thinking you do in life is not “rational maximizing”—it’s processing incomplete and uncertain information with rules of thumb so that you can make decisions quickly. What is really cool is that these rules can actually work and are important (and necessary) tools for data analysts.

LitterGitters submitted their report to the city council

The LitterGitters are a nonprofit group funded by the Dataville City Council to run public service announcements to encourage people to stop littering.

They just presented the results of their most recent work to the city council, and the reaction is not what they’d hoped for.

That last comment is the one we’re really worried about. It’s starting to look as if LitterGitters will be in big trouble very soon if you can’t persuade the city council that LitterGitters’ public outreach programs have been a success relative to the city council’s intentions for it.

The LitterGitters have really cleaned up this town

Before the LitterGitters came along, ...