BUS5AP Analytics In Practice: Data-Driven Decision Making

BUS5AP Analytics In Practice

Questions:

Assignment 1
Visualisation and storytelling
Few decision makers are interested in a simple (albeit comprehensive) analysis of data at hand.
Rather, they are interested in understanding the facts that are relevant to the decision at hand.
Visual story-telling is a technique to help inform the decision-maker(s) of those relevant facts and guide them to a decision.

Visual story-telling is becoming increasingly important to employers. In some instances, visualisation questions are part of the interview process to ascertain your suitability as a performance analyst or a data analyst. In such interview scenarios, a common kind of ‘test’ comes in the form of (i) asking you to comment on an existing/given visualisation or (ii) asking you to walk them through the process of graphing a small data set. The aim is to ensure that you not only understand analytics but also the art of communicating that to stakeholders effectively.

In this assignment, you will be asked to undertake five tasks related to the above.
You have been given a small data file containing different brands of cereals and their nutritional information. This file was provided to you by Kelloggs, which you can download from the LMS. The various columns are self-explanatory except for:
• Manufacturer, where the codes are as follows: G = General Mills, K = Kelloggs, N = Nabisco, P = Post, Q = Quaker Oats and R = Ralston Purina.
• The Type column here refers to whether the product is served hot or cold (H/C).

Tasks
1. Please articulate a framework that allows an individual to critically determine what is a “good visualisation” as opposed to a “bad visualisation.” You may use whatever sources you wish (please reference them) and you may use whatever format you wish. We are looking for a model that can be used by a sufficiently skilled professional to assess whether or not a given visualisation meets better practice. (5 marks)

2. The Kellogg’s corporation have retained you to support their marketing department. You are to produce a visualisation that will support a marketing campaign promoting their products. As a preliminary activity, please draw upon your design thinking skills to develop a stakeholder map associated with the marketing campaign. Please supplement your understanding with some basic research and bring that to the stakeholder map (5 marks)

3. Kelloggs has asked you to produce suitable visualisation(s) and to suggest a narrative that will position Kelloggs (either as a collective brand or through individual products) as one of the best to consider compared to the competitors. Please:
• Provide a text narrative (limit of 250 words) that supports the intent suggested above
• Provide a set of visualisations (maximum of three) that support the narrative
In addition to providing the text and the visualisations, please provide a critique that confirms that each meets better practice. (10 marks)

4. The figure below has been selected from a range of those available on the web• Please articulate what you think is the intended message of this visual
• Please comment upon how successful the visual is in communicating the intent.
What would you do differently?
• Please provide a visual to show how you would improve it, and articulate how and why your improved version is better. (5 marks)

5. Edwin Tufte allegedly said, “Clutter and confusion are not attributes of data – they are shortcomings of design.” Please identify a visualisation that is particularly galling (offensive, annoying, you get my drift) to you. Please:
• Provide the visualisation (I am looking for unique bad visualisations, so please also review the “Assignment 1 Bad Visualiusation” student forum section on the LMS… ensure that no other student has the same “bad visualisation” and then post your “bad visualisation” to reserve it
• Articulate why you find this visualisation such a good example of bad design
• Provide an alternative visualisation that demonstrates better practice. (5 marks)