Win with Advanced Business Analytics: Creating Business Value from Your Data

CONTEXT

It’s important to always include “context” in your data visualizations. Context can be any element that helps the audience put the data and the conclusions into a broader concept, thereby resulting in a deeper understanding of the data’s meaning. For example, if you are creating a simple time series graph showing the percentage of cases when your customer service organization resolves a customer issue after it has been contacted, consider including context, such as a benchmark for your industry or even just an internal goal for the percentage of resolution the company is aiming to achieve. These numbers will help your audience put the time series of customer service issue resolution into context, allowing for a deeper and more thorough understanding of the data.

A great way to make a chart more useful and interesting and to provide “context” is to include additional information in the background of the chart. Remember not to overwhelm your audience; be stingy with the additional facts you include. If done well, however, the additional information will provide a better perspective for the data that are presented. As a result, your audience’s understanding of the information presented will be deeper—and likely more convincing. Furthermore, the entire graphic will be more interesting. Take Exhibit 6.11 as an example, which shows the Case-Shiller home price index over time for 10 major cities in the United States as of 2009.12 There is a lot of helpful context provided in the ...