ANLY482 AY2016-17 T2 Group13 - Data Exploration
To explore the data, our group used Tableau to create a set of initial visualisations of the data set.
Before creating individual visualisations, we first have to determine the navigation layout for the application. When considering this, we followed a single simple rule: start high and enable drill down. The goal would be to have an initial overview that is intuitive for a first time user to quickly determine what’s next in the dashboard, but let an experienced user can quickly determine if anything significant has changed since their last view. A seamless flow should also be established when navigating from one visualisation to another. To achieve this, a few iterations were created before reaching the final iteration.
The first model we created focused providing a single initial overview of the UK as well as creating separate overviews on all commodities as well as all countries. Users then will be able to select a view of a single country or a single commodity.
The main weakness of this model was that it excluded details that would have encouraged further analysis. One example was that a slope graph could have been included in the overview to provide a high-level view of changes in country positions.
Furthermore, the separate views interrupted the flow of navigation of the dashboard, preventing a seamless flow.
The next model created included more information in the main overview (green section), and still allowed users to dive deeper into a single sector/commodity (orange section) or a single country (blue section). The overview included separate treemaps which highlighted the performance of UK’s imports relative to the world imports, an overview of the imports by sectors as well as by countries. Furthermore, the absolute changes in position of each country by their import trade value was also included in the overview.
However, a flow between the UK overview and the other overviews still could not be established. This was because there was no link between the UK overview, which divided the imports by sectors, to the overview of imports by countries, which divided the imports by countries. Furthermore, the absolute changes in position of each country pertained to the total import trade value of every country, while the starting overview was only of the UK.
The final model was established in the 3rd iteration, where users will start either with an overview of UK’s imports and its performance relative to the world or with an overview of all imports from the world (green section). The imports will be divided into both sectors and commodities in these views.
Users can then dive deeper into what specific countries are importing a particular selected sector/commodity (purple section). This will also include a view of the changes in position of countries based on their import trade value of that particular sector/commodity.
Lastly, users are able to conduct further analysis based on that particular sector/commodity (orange section) or proceed to select a specific country to analyse (blue section).
There is a more discernible flow of navigation in this model. At each screen, users are able to make intuitive decisions on what variable they would like to focus on, and each decision made will lead to a screen that would answer their questions.
