tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27734196107558017352024-03-13T17:30:03.631-04:00RDVGRobb's Data Viz Gallery: A simple blog to use as a gallery for data visuals I create in my spare time.Roberthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09493345809901120130noreply@blogger.comBlogger34125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2773419610755801735.post-64410616897334437572017-09-22T16:15:00.000-04:002017-09-22T16:15:53.699-04:00Snallygaster 2017<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.snallygasterdc.com/" target="_blank">Snallygaster</a> is one of the best beer festivals in the Mid-Atlantic region and I am grateful that they publish their list of beers in a handy excel sheet so dataviz geeks like me can play with it. </span><br />
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<div class='tableauPlaceholder' id='viz1506111276493' style='position: relative'><noscript><a href='#'><img alt=' ' src='https://public.tableau.com/static/images/sn/snallygaster2017/Snallygaster2017/1_rss.png' style='border: none' /></a></noscript><object class='tableauViz' style='display:none;'><param name='host_url' value='https%3A%2F%2Fpublic.tableau.com%2F' /> <param name='embed_code_version' value='2' /> <param name='site_root' value='' /><param name='name' value='snallygaster2017/Snallygaster2017' /><param name='tabs' value='yes' /><param name='toolbar' value='yes' /><param name='static_image' value='https://public.tableau.com/static/images/sn/snallygaster2017/Snallygaster2017/1.png' /> <param name='animate_transition' value='yes' /><param name='display_static_image' value='yes' /><param name='display_spinner' value='yes' /><param name='display_overlay' value='yes' /><param name='display_count' value='yes' /><param name='filter' value='publish=yes' /></object></div> <script type='text/javascript'> var divElement = document.getElementById('viz1506111276493'); var vizElement = divElement.getElementsByTagName('object')[0]; vizElement.style.width='650px';vizElement.style.height='943px'; var scriptElement = document.createElement('script'); scriptElement.src = 'https://public.tableau.com/javascripts/api/viz_v1.js'; vizElement.parentNode.insertBefore(scriptElement, vizElement); </script>
Roberthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09493345809901120130noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2773419610755801735.post-6640003601932089512016-09-15T21:11:00.000-04:002016-09-15T21:21:24.777-04:00Snallygaster Beer Finder Dataviz<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="http://snallygasterdc.com/" target="_blank">Snallygaster </a>is the best beer festival in the DC metro area. There is no doubt about this. Not only are there hundreds of delicious beers, but the event is to raise money for the local urban gardening non-profit <a href="http://arcadiafood.org/" target="_blank">Arcadia</a>. (Yes, please click on that link and check out what they do.)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">If you haven't been to Snallygaster and love great beer, you are missing out. This year, there are nearly 100 different styles of beers from 120 different breweries (including collaborations). These beers are spread across 13 different stations located in the parking lot across from Nationals Park. With this much territory to cover and all these beers to sort through, figuring out what you want to drink can be daunting. That is why I created this interactive beer finder dataviz.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The Snallygaster organizers have been kind enough to provide a list of the beers and all the associated details via a Google docs spreadsheet. I downloaded the list of beers as well as the map of the Snallygaster site. As you can see below, the list of beers combined with the map of the layout of the event, provides an opportunity to explore the world of Snallygaster beers and figure out where you want to be to get the beers you want on Saturday.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">How this works</span></h4>
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Everything in the dataviz above is interactive. You can click on a location on the Snallygaster map and see what kind of beers, their origin, their ABV, styles, and even if they are debuting in DC. When you hover over the different marks in the charts above, you will also see additional information (such as the number of breweries for each of the categories and styles). If you are someone who needs to be "the first" and always has to try something new, then you can use the "Debut?" filter (located at the top of the beer list) to choose just the beers that are debuting in DC. If you have a favorite brewery, you can find the brewery in the list at the bottom of the viz and click on the name. Then you can see where all the beers from the brewery are on the Snallygaster map.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The map of the US has zoom controls that appear in the corner when you hover over the map. This way you can better zoom in to the east coast where most of the beers originated. By the way Virginia breweries (including collaborations) are bringing the most beers to the event on Saturday. However, each collaboration is treated as a unique brewery so keep that in mind as you are perusing the list and analyzing the results of your "analysis."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">For those of you who might be looking for lower ABV beers (there is no shame in that whatsoever) you can use the ABV distribution chart. Not only can you click on the individual bars to view the beers with that ABV, but you can hold the ctrl key while selecting additional bars, or draw a box around the ABV bars you want to select.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">As you can see there are lots of ways you can interact with this beer finder dataviz. However, it is best viewed on a monitor, laptop, or a tablet. You can try it on your smart phone, but it might be difficult to select and view the entire viz at once.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">See you Saturday at Snallygaster!</span></div>
Roberthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09493345809901120130noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2773419610755801735.post-60616366687991897602014-09-23T09:41:00.005-04:002014-09-23T13:16:22.153-04:00Silk, Pie Charts, and NFL Arrests<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I stumbled into an interesting conversation yesterday on Twitter between a friend of mine and the twitter handle for <a href="http://silk.co/" target="_blank">Silk.co</a>. For those of you not familiar with Silk, it is a website that aggregates datasets that are relevant to current trends and events and provides some simple and easy to use data visualization tools for creating a stories using their data sets. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It all started when Silk published this tweet yesterday afternoon with a chart created from their site using a dataset of NFL arrests since 2000.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This Silk database covers the arrests and citations involving <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/NFLPlayers?src=hash">#NFLPlayers</a> since 2000. <a href="https://t.co/aJS31HTbtu">https://t.co/aJS31HTbtu</a> <a href="http://t.co/LvZOOWczt1">pic.twitter.com/LvZOOWczt1</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">— Silk (@SilkDotCo) <a href="https://twitter.com/SilkDotCo/status/514125578170302464">September 22, 2014</a></span></blockquote>
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I retweeted this and then followed up with a tweet of my own.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">LRT how NOT to do pie charts</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">— Robb (@robbtuftshockey) <a href="https://twitter.com/robbtuftshockey/status/514127302264107010">September 22, 2014</a></span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> What followed was an engaging conversation between one of my friends, the Silk account, and myself about chart types and dataviz best practices. And while I am not very good at dataviz makeovers, this one was simple. Turn this pie chart into a horizontal bar chart sorted descending.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This is a much cleaner look at the data and it is easier to see the most, least, and the overall distribution of arrests between teams in the NFL. However, this doesn't tell the whole story. If you look into the data, you start to see some players are arrested on more than on occasion which can skew the results. We might also want to look at the reasons for the arrest, the outcomes, and perhaps the positions of the players being arrested. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So this prompted me to create a quick dashboard to better explore this data. Unfortunately, I sized the dashboard for landscape iPad which means it won't embed properly into this post. So click on the image below to take you to the dashboard where you can interact with it.</span></div>
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<a href="https://public.tableausoftware.com/views/NFLArrests_2/NFLArrestDashboard?:embed=y&:display_count=no" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-9srjGEPDXkU/VCF1jhVdWXI/AAAAAAAAAz4/dJ0hoAQ95jM/s1600/NFL_Arrest_Dashboard.png" height="409" width="640" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Minnesota might have the most arrests, but it is clear that they also have a number of players with repeat arrests. Wide receivers have more arrests than other positions in the NFL. And the top three arrest categories are DUI, domestic violence, and drugs.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Some quick notes about the design. First, the arrest category field had multiple values for some players. For instance, if you look at the summary box, you'll see players that have DUI, drugs listed as the category. I grouped the categories together based on the first value listed. For example values like "DUI, drugs", "DUI", "DUI, guns" were all grouped together under "DUI" for the tree map on the right. I chose to group on the first value under the assumption that that value was the primary reason for the arrest. I know that I might catch some critique for using the tree map and packed bubble charts. I chose the tree map because I wanted to show part of the whole and also I wanted to make it visually interesting. I think a horizontal bar chart might be more appropriate, but not as visually appealing. With some of the visualizations I have been creating lately for hockey, I've been skewing more towards the pretty side of useful/pretty because I have to be able to catch people's attention. But at the same time I want to make sure my visualizations are accurate. In this case I think the tree map works well. The packed bubbles is probably a little more controversial of a chart choice, but the same reasoning as before applies for this. I wanted something that would be visually appealing while still telling an accurate story. You can easily see how certain positions are arrested more than others, and the coloring adds some additional variation to the visualization and makes it a bit more "playful" looking.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Let me know what you think!</span></div>
<br />Roberthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09493345809901120130noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2773419610755801735.post-56173212723858503462014-03-12T14:37:00.001-04:002014-10-30T13:47:08.461-04:00A look at salaries for City of Annapolis employees<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It is budget time for the <a href="http://www.ci.annapolis.md.us/" target="_blank">City of Annapolis</a>. The new mayor, Mike Pantelides, has <a href="http://www.capitalgazette.com/news/annapolis/annapolis-mayor-pantelides-first-budget-includes-job-cuts-furloughs/article_896c201c-1a76-5da4-9506-d7b3039b19db.html" target="_blank">proposed a series of job eliminations, furloughs, and lay-offs</a> for the City of Annapolis. The local Annapolis newspaper, <a href="http://www.hometownannapolis.com/" target="_blank">The Capital</a>, has done a great public service by publishing the salaries for city employees. And even though I know most of the information is public record, I do have to disagree with their publishing the individual's name alongside the salary data. I think it would have been sufficient to just publish each position without the name or with a non-traceable ID. But I took the data they provided and turned it into a data visualization that you can explore to see exactly which departments comman the highest salaries and employ the most individuals in the city.</span><br />
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<a name='more'></a><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I took the data from The Capital's<a href="http://www.capitalgazette.com/data/annapolis/" target="_blank"> Data Center: Annapolis</a> webpage. The only thing I did to change the data for the visualization is group departments into what I call "Sectors". You can hover over the column header in the top bar chart and click the plus button to see how I grouped departments into sectors. For instance, I took fire, police, and emergency management and grouped them into "Public Safety". I also removed the names from the data source for my visualization and replaced them with IDs that should be non-traceable. I did this to protect the privacy of lower level city employees.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Eventually I would like to get my hands on the City of Annapolis budget and see if I can create one of those budget tools that allow you to make your own cuts or increases and then see the impact of your decisions.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Let me know what you think of this visualization in the comments below and if you would like to see this data presented in a different format.</span>Roberthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09493345809901120130noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2773419610755801735.post-88017461616449094682013-03-21T16:40:00.003-04:002013-03-21T16:40:54.120-04:00I can't really call it a hiatus...<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">because I do not post on a regular basis. When I first started this blog, I thought I would be posting at least once a month. But in reality I was doing it about once in a while. And over time I found myself doing more and more hockey related viz.</span><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Consequently, I have been asked to post a weekly column for </span><a href="http://www.stlouisgametime.com/" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">St. Louis Game Time</span></a><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> (a fan run St. Louis Blues hockey blog). This opportunity has created additional opportunities related to hockey data visualization.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I have also been asked to contribute </span><a href="http://new.usgbc.org/articles/leed-professionals-glance-march-2013" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">data viz for my organization's website</span></a><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So if you are interested in continuing to follow my work, please check out </span><a href="http://www.stlouisgametime.com/blues-by-the-numbers" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">my posts at St. Louis Game Time</span></a><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> and keep your eye on the front page of </span><a href="http://usgbc.org/"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">USGBC.org</span></a><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> every third and fourth week of the month.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I hope to be back here posting on a semi-regular basis again after the hockey season ends.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Thank you all for reading!</span><br />
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<br />Roberthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09493345809901120130noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2773419610755801735.post-5275664318269652892013-02-19T21:42:00.002-05:002013-02-19T21:42:07.881-05:00Thank you for putting me in the top 1% of Tableau authors!<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I received an email from Tableau today. It thanked me for being in the top 1% of Tableau Public authors. Really...I'm in the top 1% of Tableau Public authors? That is pretty fantastic and I have all of <b>YOU</b> to thank for it. I really have appreciated all the support I've received from friends, colleagues, and fellow Tableau users. Many of you have RT my postings on Twitter. Some of you have posted a link to my blog on your site. Whatever the case may be, I am grateful for all the support, feedback, and visitors I have received at this site. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I assume the metric they are using is the number of views for the visualizations I have created and posted on my blog. So I thought I would put together a quick viz showing the top 10 posts by page views.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I'm not sure what that means, but it does get me additional storage space for my Tableau Public account (and who doesn't want more storage space?).</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><u>So thank you very much for visiting my blog and for all your support.</u></b></span><br />
<br />Roberthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09493345809901120130noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2773419610755801735.post-56104018858408382082013-02-17T14:50:00.001-05:002013-02-17T14:51:19.565-05:00Hockey Day Across America 2013<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Last year for <a href="http://www.hockeyweekendacrossamerica.com/" target="_blank">Hockey Day Across America</a>, I took a look at the <a href="http://robbsdatavizgallery.blogspot.com/2012/02/player-nationalities-for-hockey-day.html" target="_blank">birthplaces of NHL players</a> whose teams were playing on Hockey Day Across America. I decided to update the visualization this year but just focusing on the number of US born players that are currently playing in the NHL during the abbreviated 2012-2013 season.
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<script type="text/javascript" src="http://public.tableausoftware.com/javascripts/api/viz_v1.js"></script><div class="tableauPlaceholder" style="width:704px; height:929px;"><noscript><a href="#"><img alt="Hockey Day Across AmericaHow many US born players are on NHL teams? " src="http://public.tableausoftware.com/static/images/HD/HDAA2013/HDAADataViz/1_rss.png" style="border: none" /></a></noscript><object class="tableauViz" width="704" height="929" style="display:none;"><param name="host_url" value="http%3A%2F%2Fpublic.tableausoftware.com%2F" /><param name="site_root" value="" /><param name="name" value="HDAA2013/HDAADataViz" /><param name="tabs" value="no" /><param name="toolbar" value="yes" /><param name="static_image" value="http://public.tableausoftware.com/static/images/HD/HDAA2013/HDAADataViz/1.png" /><param name="animate_transition" value="yes" /><param name="display_static_image" value="yes" /><param name="display_spinner" value="yes" /><param name="display_overlay" value="yes" /><param name="display_count" value="yes" /></object></div><div style="width:704px;height:22px;padding:0px 10px 0px 0px;color:black;font:normal 8pt verdana,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;"><div style="float:right; padding-right:8px;"><a href="http://www.tableausoftware.com/public?ref=http://public.tableausoftware.com/views/HDAA2013/HDAADataViz" target="_blank">Powered by Tableau</a></div></div>
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<b><u><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Data</span></u></b><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The data comes from the <a href="http://www.nhl.com/ice/playerstats.htm#?navid=nav-sts-indiv" target="_blank">player statistics on NHL.com</a>. I filtered the Bios report for just US born players. Some of the players included in the list might be two way players that do not play solely in the NHL. The list does include players who have played at least one game in the NHL this season.</span><br />
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<b><u><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Design</span></u></b><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The design is straightforward without a lot of interaction. I chose a lollipop chart as opposed to a traditional bar chart because of the size restrictions for the viz. This type of chart allowed me to be able to remove the Y axis with the team names. Instead, of a traditional circle at the end of the line, I used the team logo "jewel" to identify the team. One element of interaction is the ability to sort the lollipop chart by either the team name (for ease of locating your favorite team) or by the number of US players (to easily identify the team with the most US players).</span><br />
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<b><u><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Result</span></u></b><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As you can see, 5 of the top 10 teams for US born players are playing today. Most of the teams playing in nationally televised games are at or above the NHL average for the number of US born players on a team. In fact, out of the 7 games today, the three nationally televised games have the most US born players on the teams' rosters. NBC and the NHL should be commended for featuring games that have the potential to highlight the most US born players playing on the nice today.</span><br />
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<a href="http://robbsdatavizgallery.blogspot.com/search/label/hockey" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">View additional hockey related data visualizations that I have created.</span></a><br />
<br />Roberthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09493345809901120130noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2773419610755801735.post-32904093405056440022013-01-04T20:57:00.000-05:002013-01-30T13:11:07.145-05:00What states do hockey players come from in the US?<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As a hockey fan, I follow several hockey bloggers and hockey reporters on Twitter. Earlier today, hockey writer <a href="http://www.twitter.com/mirtle" target="_blank">James Mirtle</a> from <a href="http://www.theglobeandmail.com/sports/hockey/globe-on-hockey/" target="_blank">The Globe and Mail</a> tweeted out a link to a <a href="http://t.co/LoXVQGQF" target="_blank">very well organized Google Docs spreadsheet</a> (with a nice chart embedded) in which he had compiled stats regarding where hockey players have come from within the United States. Since there isn't much other hockey stats going on right now with the lockout I'm looking for all sorts of other hockey related data viz projects and took advantage of the data he made available.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Nothing fancy, just a quick look at where hockey players are coming from within the U.S. And yes...I used </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><b>pie charts</b></span><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">! With only two categories to compare and the fact that I could size them to show the total overall for each state I thought this would be a quick and dirty way to get the point across. While it might seemed jumbled you can hover over a state to highlight that state on the map, you can also pan zoom on the map (hover over the map for controls) and you can also filter by region so you can get a closer look groupings of states. I would be curious to know what some of the data viz community think of this use of pie charts. After all, back in the day I think I saw a similar type of map/pie chart combo on Tableau's website...</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As always, thank you for visiting my blog!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">PS: You can find more of my hockey related data viz <a href="http://robbsdatavizgallery.blogspot.com/search/label/hockey" target="_blank">here</a>.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">PPS: Someone from Reddit wanted to see per capita so here it is...</span><br />
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<script type="text/javascript" src="http://public.tableausoftware.com/javascripts/api/viz_v1.js"></script><div class="tableauPlaceholder" style="width:654px; height:719px;"><noscript><a href="#"><img alt="Hockey Players Per Capita (2010 Census) " src="http://public.tableausoftware.com/static/images/Ho/HockeyPlayersinUS/PerCapitaHockeyPlayersUSStates/1_rss.png" style="border: none" /></a></noscript><object class="tableauViz" width="654" height="719" style="display:none;"><param name="host_url" value="http%3A%2F%2Fpublic.tableausoftware.com%2F" /><param name="site_root" value="" /><param name="name" value="HockeyPlayersinUS/PerCapitaHockeyPlayersUSStates" /><param name="tabs" value="no" /><param name="toolbar" value="yes" /><param name="static_image" value="http://public.tableausoftware.com/static/images/Ho/HockeyPlayersinUS/PerCapitaHockeyPlayersUSStates/1.png" /><param name="animate_transition" value="yes" /><param name="display_static_image" value="yes" /><param name="display_spinner" value="yes" /><param name="display_overlay" value="yes" /><param name="display_count" value="yes" /></object></div><div style="width:654px;height:22px;padding:0px 10px 0px 0px;color:black;font:normal 8pt verdana,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;"><div style="float:right; padding-right:8px;"><a href="http://www.tableausoftware.com/public?ref=http://public.tableausoftware.com/views/HockeyPlayersinUS/PerCapitaHockeyPlayersUSStates" target="_blank">Powered by Tableau</a></div></div>
Roberthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09493345809901120130noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2773419610755801735.post-47169016391571977872012-10-15T13:35:00.000-04:002012-11-30T16:18:50.315-05:00Where are they now? NHL players abroad during the 2012-2013 lockout.<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This is not a good time for hockey fans. When the collective bargaining agreement between the NHL owners the the NHL Players' Association expired and no new agreement had been reached, the owners decided to lockout the NHLPA. This has resulted in a delayed start to the season and a possible repeat of the 2004-2005 season when the entire season was scrapped.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As the lockout became more and more certain, NHL players who were originally from Europe started to head back home and sign contracts to play with teams back in their home countries. As the exodus of players continued, lists started to be compiled to allow fans to keep track of which players were playing for which teams. However, most of these lists have been unable to tell the complete story of how many players are playing for which leagues and teams and in which cities and countries.</span><br />
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<a name='more'></a><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.sbnation.com/2012/10/5/3461702/nhl-lockout-2012-europe-players-list" target="_blank">Travis Hughes over at SBNation</a> and the hockey lifestyle magazine <a href="http://www.thefourthperiod.com/lockout_tracker.html" target="_blank">The Fourth Period</a> have both put together comprehensive lists of players abroad that appear to be updated on a regular basis. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I had big plans for diving into hockey data for the 2012-2013 season, but with no hockey being played, I did the next best thing. I tried to tackle the lists of players who are playing abroad during the lockout. I came up with an interactive dataviz that allows you to see not only the countries where NHL players are playing, but also the cities where they are playing, the leagues they are playing for, and how many players from NHL teams are playing abroad. The viz allows you to filter by country or city, or European league or team, or by NHL team. You can hover over the labels along the axis of the charts in order to highlight relevant corresponding data points elsewhere on the viz.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Data</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The data for this viz came from both The Fourth Period Lockout Tracker and the list put together by Travis Hughes. for SBNation. Unfortunately, their lists did not sync up. So I combined the two and used wikipedia to help verify the location of the teams and leagues and to standardized league and team names between the two combined lists. It appears that these lists are updated on a regular basis, so I plan to update my data weekly. I use the location of the actual team that a player is playing for regardless of the league that the team is a part of. For instance, the KHL is known as a Russian hockey league. However, there are a handful of teams in the KHL that are outside of Russia. So instead of counting NHL players who are playing in the KHL as playing in Russia, I count them as playing in the country where their KHL team is located. That is why even though KHL has the most NHL players, the Czech Republic is the country with the most NHL players. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Please leave me comments to let me know what you think of the viz and any suggestions on other hockey related visualizations you might want to see during the lockout.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As always, thank you for taking the time to check out my blog and my work.</span><br />
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</h3>Roberthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09493345809901120130noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2773419610755801735.post-59167246340747070312012-08-01T16:56:00.001-04:002012-08-13T10:12:53.614-04:00Olympic Medals: Counts and Scoring<br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">First, let me start by saying that I love watching the Olympics. I prefer the winter, but I am just as involved in the summer games. I would consider qualifying to attend the Olympics as a competitor a major life accomplishment let alone winning any sort of medal. These athletes spend most of their lives up to that point honing their skills in order to succeed in their sport. It is amazing to watch them compete, regardless of the sport.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">When the media ranks a country's success at the Olympics, it is almost always in terms of their medal count. The total number of gold, silver, and bronze medals that a country's athletes have won during the games. However, I think that a total medal count only tells part of the story. So I have put together a data viz that assigns points to the type of medal awarded: 3 for gold, 2 for silver, 1 for bronze. I'm sure I am not the first person to think about doing this, however, you rarely see this in the mainstream media. I can understand why. Earning a bronze is an accomplishment in and of itself, even if the athlete would have preferred gold. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">However, I thought it would be interesting to see how countries would be ranked on scoring the type of medals earned versus their total medal count.</span><br />
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<script type="text/javascript" src="http://public.tableausoftware.com/javascripts/api/viz_v1.js"></script><div class="tableauPlaceholder" style="width:754px; height:1569px;"><noscript><a href="#"><img alt="2012 Summer Olympics Medal ChartLast updated 8/4/12 9:30 am EDT " src="http://public.tableausoftware.com/static/images/Ol/Olympics2012Summer/MedalRankings/1_rss.png" style="border: none" /></a></noscript><object class="tableauViz" width="754" height="1569" style="display:none;"><param name="host_url" value="http%3A%2F%2Fpublic.tableausoftware.com%2F" /><param name="site_root" value="" /><param name="name" value="Olympics2012Summer/MedalRankings" /><param name="tabs" value="no" /><param name="toolbar" value="yes" /><param name="static_image" value="http://public.tableausoftware.com/static/images/Ol/Olympics2012Summer/MedalRankings/1.png" /><param name="animate_transition" value="yes" /><param name="display_static_image" value="yes" /><param name="display_spinner" value="yes" /><param name="display_overlay" value="yes" /><param name="display_count" value="yes" /></object></div><div style="width:754px;height:22px;padding:0px 10px 0px 0px;color:black;font:normal 8pt verdana,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;"><div style="float:right; padding-right:8px;"><a href="http://www.tableausoftware.com/public?ref=http://public.tableausoftware.com/views/Olympics2012Summer/MedalRankings" target="_blank">Powered by Tableau</a></div></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This data viz was pretty straight forward except for the sorting. Some of the countries had similar medal scores, but different medal counts (and vice versa). I wanted those countries that shared the same medal score/count to be sorted by their medal count/score. It appeared to me that when the measure used for sorting is equal the Tableau default is to sort alphabetically. So when Japan and France had the same medal score France was listed first and then Japan. However, Japan had a higher medal count so I wanted them to be sorted ahead of France. There is no explicit feature for secondary sorting based on a second measure. So I created a calculated field that combined the medal score and the medal count into a new number that was then used for sorting. It took me a while to figure that out, but it seems to be working for the time being.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>My medal count data comes from Google and I'll be updating it once a day usually in the morning around 9am EDT.</i></b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Let me know your thoughts! And as always, thank you for taking time to read my blog.</span>Roberthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09493345809901120130noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2773419610755801735.post-64536018736643426612012-07-06T17:27:00.000-04:002012-08-05T12:40:13.375-04:00Chesapeake Bay Water Quality Viz<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I am not a scientist nor do I have a background in the "hard sciences" (my degree is in Political Science). However, I am a strong advocate for the Chesapeake Bay and have been actively involved in a variety of activities and organizations that are trying to clean up, preserve, and protect the Chesapeake Bay.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chesapeake_bay" target="_blank">Chesapeake Bay</a> is the largest estuary in North America. At one time it was teeming with fish, crabs, and oysters. However, after centuries of water pollution, air pollution, over-development along its shores, over-fishing, and agricultural runoff, it is currently in a very distressed condition.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I am currently conversing with a local watershed group about using Tableau as a tool to visualize the data that this specific local group collects about their waterway. People are always wanting to know the condition of the waterway either out of general concern, or because they want to know if it is okay to swim or fish in the water. During our initial conversation they recommended that I take a look at the data that the <a href="http://www.chesapeakebay.net/" target="_blank">Chesapeake Bay Program</a> makes available to the public. So I downloaded a set of data focusing on three primary metrics: dissolved oxygen, secchi disk depth, and water temperature.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Dissolved oxygen is an important metric regarding the health of the Chesapeake Bay because the creatures living in the bay need oxygen to survive. No oxygen and the fish and other animals who live in the waters of the bay begin to die. According to the "Breath of Life" newsletter published by NOAA and the Chesapeake Bay Program, 5 milligrams per liter of dissolved oxygen is required for most aquatic life to thrive. </span>
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Oxygen levels below 1-2 mg/L, even if only for a few hours, can cause large fish kills.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Secchi disk is a disk segmented into alternating quarter panels of black and white. The disk is attached to a string and then lowered into the water. The moment the individual can no longer see the disk in the water, the string is marked at the waterline and pulled back up and measured. The distance between the waterline mark on the string and the disk is the secchi disk depth.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Finally, I included water temperature because we know that water temperature can affect water quality and dissolved oxygen. It also provides some contexts as well to the readings and it is a metric that most people can easily identify and understand.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I added a few reference points to the monthly trend chart. The dotted lines are the trend lines and I marked the minimum level of DO in the DO portion of the trend chart. I also marked the three tropical storms that had affected the Chesapeake Bay between 2007 and 2011.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Ultimately, this is a demo viz to show the group I am talking with about the type of interactive visualizations we can make for the public in order to use their data to tell the story of the body of water for which they have assumed responsibility. Any thoughts from the Tableau or dataviz community would be welcome as I hopefully move forward with this project with them.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And as always, thanks for taking the time to check out my blog.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Update: After going live with this, I began to rethink the design and text that accompanied the viz. I opted to go with a cleaner, more straightforward viz that does not use a scatterplot (for once). Those who have access to Tableau can download the workbook to view my original viz. I think you will find this updated version is much better.</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Thank you to Ted W., Rob S. and Erik M. for their editorial and technical assistance with the science.</i></span></div>
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<br /></div>Roberthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09493345809901120130noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2773419610755801735.post-45475419588998145692012-05-09T09:57:00.000-04:002012-05-09T09:57:09.931-04:00Hartigan's Hockey Team Ratings<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A while back hockey fan extraordinaire <a href="http://twitter.com/#!/StephHartigan" target="_blank">@StephHartigan</a> ranked <a href="http://www.nhl.com/" target="_blank">NHL teams</a> by her own set of personal criteria. As I am always looking for new, unique data sets to play with in Tableau, she graciously provided me with a google docs spreadsheet of her rankings. I took her team rankings and turned it into an interactive viz that she can share with her friends so they can have a better understanding of why she might choose one team over another.</span><br />
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<a name='more'></a><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Nothing fancy here, just pick two teams, and you can see how she ranked each team based on her own categories and ranking criteria. You can then figure out which teams she will prefer to cheer for during the remainder of the playoffs.</span><br />
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</div>Roberthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09493345809901120130noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2773419610755801735.post-9288742592821825252012-05-01T16:39:00.000-04:002012-05-01T16:39:03.676-04:00Birds Do It, Bees Do It Part 2<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Everyone makes mistakes. Unfortunately, it seems like I make more mistakes than most. Also, sometimes it seems I make more obvious mistakes than others. Such is the case with my "Birds and Bees" viz from last year.</span><br />
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<a name='more'></a><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It has come to my attention recently that I made one of the cardinal (pun intended) mistakes of data viz. I didn't get to know my data very well. I overlooked the fact that the data I received has all the types of activities, regardless of whether or not the animal being observed engaged in that activity. There was a field labeled status that informed you whether or not the animal was actually observed engaging in that specific activity. Well, I overlooked that basic information. So I went back when I had a couple of moments to spare while waiting for reports to download and fixed the viz. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">There are far fewer birds now and I can actually size the map icons so you can get a very general idea of the number of observations for a particular location. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I was always rather pleased with this specific viz, so I am glad to have a more accurate version of it now. </span></div>
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<br /></div>Roberthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09493345809901120130noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2773419610755801735.post-25825642725689986942012-04-26T20:58:00.000-04:002012-04-26T20:58:45.855-04:00Tableau Biz Viz Contest Entry: A Click-through History of Venture Capital Investment Deals<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;">Tableau is holding one of their regular visualization contests. Their </span></span><span style="color: #333333; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;"><a href="http://www.tableausoftware.com/public/biz-viz-2012" target="_blank">Interactive Biz Viz Contest</a> challenges Tableau users to take business data (any business data) and turn it into an informative, interactive data visualization using Tableau. They give you some suggestions for data sets that are available. I chose v</span><span style="color: #333333; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;">enture Capital data from </span><a class="ext" href="http://www.nvca.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=77&Itemid=101" style="color: #cc0000; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">the National Venture Capital Association</a>. Check it out...</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This visualization was originally designed to be animated using the playback controls for Tableau page views. Unfortunately, much to my dismay, I found out that the playback controls that would automate this visualization are not available in the public version of Tableau. Nevertheless, I think you can still get the same effect by manually clicking through the data.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So the data sets I used from the National Venture Capital Association are independent of one another. Perhaps I didn't know the right place to look, but I couldn't find a data set that combined region with industry. Regardless, I thought showing both the regional data and industry data side by side would still be both interesting and informative. In fact, you will notice certain obvious trends. For instance, in Q2 of 1995 you see an increase in the average investment in both the Media/Entertainment industry and in LA/Orange County region. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Some of you who have been following my data viz creations might be rolling your eyes at seeing me create yet another scatterplot visualization. I know...I know. I thought about this myself. The actual purpose of this particular viz for me was to find a way to use the page controls in Tableau. The page controls is one aspect of Tableau I have not really taken full advantage of. It just so happens, that I also thought the data looked better as it moved within the scatterplot from page to page as opposed to using some other view such as a bar graph or some type of matrix. I also spent more time thinking about this scatterplot fetish of mine. I actually think some of it comes from the fact that I spend most of my days making line charts, bar charts, heat maps, etc that when it comes to something I create for myself, the last thing I want to look at is another bar chart. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But back to the page controls. As I mentioned above, this is actually designed for the playback control for pages. If you are a Tableau user, take a moment and download the viz, turn on the playback controls and press the play button. If you do this, let me know your thoughts in the comments section below.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As always, thank you in advance for any feedback, comments, suggestions you provide and thank you for reading my blog!</span></div>Roberthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09493345809901120130noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2773419610755801735.post-14616675152802561172012-04-17T22:58:00.000-04:002012-04-17T22:58:49.535-04:00NHL Player and Team Stats v2.0<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The 2011-2012 <a href="http://www.nhl.com/" target="_blank">NHL </a>regular season is finished, and the <a href="http://www.nhl.com/ice/stanleycup.htm" target="_blank">first round of the playoffs</a> is well underway. During the latter part of the hockey season, I took some time to revise and update my original NHL player stats data viz. I ended up with something radically different than what I created last summer for the Tableau sports data contest. It is <i><b>not </b></i><a href="https://twitter.com/#!/search/%23fancystats" target="_blank">#fancystats</a>, like what <a href="http://search.espn.go.com/neil-greenberg/" target="_blank">Neil Greenberg</a> specializes in, but I think looking at hockey data in this format is fun and informative. Check it out...</span><br />
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<a name='more'></a><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The main difference between my original 2010-2011 player stats and v2.0 is the addition of team stats. So there are two tabs; one for team stats and the other for player stats. The one thing I didn't change from the original version is the scatterplot. I kept that for both the player and team stats. However, I did add bar charts so you can better view the two stats you choose independently of one another.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">One of the problems with using the scatterplot for the players stats was the number of players really made the chart look busy. I added more filters to the players stats viz so you have various ways to reduce the number of players visible in the scatterplot. It also allows you to compare just two teams or view players within specific divisions or conferences. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As far as the design of v2.0, I stripped it bare. I was inspired by Paul Rodriguez's blog <a href="http://insidedeadbustedgrant.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">Data About Sports</a>. He did a <a href="http://insidedeadbustedgrant.blogspot.com/2012/03/nhl-shootout-data-for-skaters.html" target="_blank">hockey data viz</a> that was simple, clean and used team logos. I always try to make things too complicated, especially when it comes to the look of my data visualizations. So I kept v2.0 simple and clean. Instead of using team logos, I used the "jewels" or buttons that the NHL and NHL teams use on their website. I like the jewels better than the logos because the jewels are uniform in shape and they were much easier to find, download, and import into Tableau than logos were.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Check out the two visualizations below. Click on team names or logos or players names to highlight those teams or players. There are zoom controls when you hover over the scatterplots. Check out the one that looks like a square with a "+". You can use that to draw a box for a zoom-in.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Leave a comment and let me know what you think about this updated visualization. Thank you for reading my blog.</span><br />
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<script type="text/javascript" src="http://public.tableausoftware.com/javascripts/api/viz_v1.js"></script><div class="tableauPlaceholder" style="width:864px; height:1095px;"><noscript><a href="#"><img alt=" " src="http://public.tableausoftware.com/static/images/NH/NHLStatsViz2point0/TeamStats/1_rss.png" style="border: none" /></a></noscript><object class="tableauViz" width="864" height="1095" style="display:none;"><param name="host_url" value="http%3A%2F%2Fpublic.tableausoftware.com%2F" /><param name="site_root" value="" /><param name="name" value="NHLStatsViz2point0/TeamStats" /><param name="tabs" value="yes" /><param name="toolbar" value="yes" /><param name="static_image" value="http://public.tableausoftware.com/static/images/NH/NHLStatsViz2point0/TeamStats/1.png" /><param name="animate_transition" value="yes" /><param name="display_static_image" value="yes" /><param name="display_spinner" value="yes" /><param name="display_overlay" value="yes" /><param name="display_count" value="yes" /></object></div><div style="width:864px;height:22px;padding:0px 10px 0px 0px;color:black;font:normal 8pt verdana,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;"><div style="float:right; padding-right:8px;"><a href="http://www.tableausoftware.com/public?ref=http://public.tableausoftware.com/views/NHLStatsViz2point0/TeamStats" target="_blank">Powered by Tableau</a></div></div>Roberthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09493345809901120130noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2773419610755801735.post-83545319977720713442012-02-20T10:57:00.000-05:002012-02-20T10:58:43.777-05:00Player Nationalities for Hockey Day Across America<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Yesterday, the NHL participated in USA Hockey's <a href="http://www.usahockey.com/hwaa/default.aspx" target="_blank">Hockey Weekend Across America </a>with their own <a href="http://www.nhl.com/ice/news.htm?id=617268" target="_blank">Hockey Day Across America activities</a>. For hockey fans, such as myself, it is great to see the sport of hockey being promoted in the United States. The day featured some great games on national television, and had special events around the country to encourage kids and families to try out hockey for the first time. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The television line up featured three great games: St. Louis Blues vs Chicago Blackhawks, Pittsburgh Penguins vs. Buffalo Sabres, and the Detroit Red Wings vs. San Jose Sharks. There was only one disappointment however -- the Red Wings dominated the airwaves yesterday. <b><i>(Full disclosure: I am a St. Louis Blues fan which means I am very much biased against the Red Wings.)</i></b> In fact, Laura (<a href="https://twitter.com/#!/hildymac" target="_blank">@hildymac</a>), from the blog <a href="http://www.thrashingtheblues.com/" target="_blank">Thrashing the Blues</a>, and I had a Twitter conversation about this most disturbing aspect of HDAA. As an out-of-town Blues fan, it is rare that we get to see them on national TV. After all, the Blues/Blackhawks rivalry is a great rivalry, and as Laura duly noted there were quite a few US born players on both the Blackhawks and Blues teams. So why not give the Blues/Blackhawks game more national coverage instead of giving it mainly regional coverage?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This got me to thinking...</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Exactly what were the nationalities of the players playing during the nationally televised games on HDAA? If it is Hockey Day (Weekend) Across America, wouldn't we want to feature matches that showcased the best talent from the United States?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So my conversation with Laura inspired me to do some research and put together this quick data viz featuring the nationalities of the players who were on the roster for the nationally televised games on Hockey Day Across America. Keep in mind, I used the rosters (including scratches) only because hockey teams swap out players on a regular basis, and I needed some way to keep the number of players consistent. Don't be surprised when Crosby doesn't show up on the list of players for Pittsburgh. <a href="http://penguins.nhl.com/club/news.htm?id=615554" target="_blank">He wasn't on the roster</a>. Check out the rosters for yourself on the <a href="http://www.nhl.com/ice/gamestats.htm?season=20112012&gameType=2&team=&viewName=teamRTSSreports" target="_blank">NHL website</a>.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Some of the results are expected. Obviously, most of the players playing yesterday came from Canada, and then from the United States. In fact the Buffalo Sabres had the most U.S. players on their roster yesterday. But the big question, which match-ups had the most U.S. born players? Well, take a look at the bottom chart. It is clear that the Buffalo/Pittsburgh game had the most U.S. players on the roster yesterday, with Buffalo having the highest percentage of their roster from the U.S. The St. Louis Blues and Pittsburgh Penguins have the next highest percentage of players on their team from the United States and the Blues/Blackhawks game had the second most number of U.S. players on the roster for HDAA. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So the two match-ups that had the most U.S. players on their rosters for Hockey Day Across America were the two games that were treated as regional broadcasts instead of full nation-wide coverage. Granted, the numbers are close (14, 10, 9, 8) but the percentage of players on the roster from the U.S. should also be taken into account.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Now, I fully realize why the Red Wings/Sharks game was chosen to be the game broadcast nation-wide. But in the future, the NHL and NBC Sports might want to consider actually highlighting games that feature the most U.S. talent for future Hockey Day Across Americas.</span>Roberthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09493345809901120130noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2773419610755801735.post-38952198422721938302012-02-08T12:16:00.000-05:002012-02-09T10:27:18.366-05:00FDIC Bank Closings -- Tableau Demo for Work<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Some of the staff where I work are interested in a demo of Tableau. Basically they want to know what it is, how does it work, and how we are using it. So I downloaded the<a href="http://explore.data.gov/Banking-Finance-and-Insurance/FDIC-Failed-Bank-List/pwaj-zn2n" target="_blank"> FDIC Failed Banks</a> list from <a href="http://data.gov/">Data.gov</a> and used this data set to show them how easy it is to create a quick interactive data visualization that can be embedded into a blog post. I actually made this right in front of them as part of the demo. It took about 10 minutes max.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Nothing fancy, and there are others who have <a href="http://www.tableausoftware.com/public/blog/2011/12/united-states-bank-failures-1400" target="_blank">done this as well</a>, but it is a heck of a lot better than my <a href="http://robbsdatavizgallery.blogspot.com/2011/10/fdic-bank-closings.html" target="_blank">previous viz</a> using this same data. This actually makes me happy because I hope it is showing a certain level of growth in my skills and understanding of data visualizations.</span><br />
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<br />Roberthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09493345809901120130noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2773419610755801735.post-60616641583255883502012-02-03T16:40:00.000-05:002012-02-03T16:40:39.237-05:00“You miss 100% of the shots you never take.”<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I love that quote from Wayne Gretzky even though it is obvious and has become a bit cliche'.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The St. Louis Blues had a little bit of extra time off after the All-Star game. Tonight is their first game since the break. I wanted to publish one more data viz before they started back up again. After that, I will probably wait till the end of the season to publish any additional hockey data visualizations.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This visualization is taking a look at their goal scoring (or as many Blues' fans would say -- their lack of goal scoring). They need to score more goals if they want to remain competitive for the remainder of the season and (hopefully) the playoffs. So I put together something that shows who has the best goal percentage, goals per game, which players need to improve their goal scoring ability, and which players need to shoot the puck more!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This visualization is pretty straight forward. Read the explanation in the top right corner. There really isn't much interactivity except for highlighting the names between the scatterplot and the table below it.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If you haven't already, check out my previous St. Louis Blues visualization <a href="http://robbsdatavizgallery.blogspot.com/2012/01/st-louis-blues-players-performance-at.html" target="_blank">St. Louis Blues Players Performance at the All-Star Break</a>. You might also be interested in checking out my monster <a href="http://robbsdatavizgallery.blogspot.com/2011/07/my-not-quite-official-tableau-sports.html" target="_blank">hockey stats mash-up</a> from the 2010-2011 season.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Let me know your thoughts and what you might like to see in the future...and thank you for reading!</span><br />
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<br />Roberthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09493345809901120130noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2773419610755801735.post-18743281536871716732012-01-30T21:05:00.001-05:002012-01-30T21:09:57.523-05:00St. Louis Blues Players Performance at the All-Star Break<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> The <a href="http://www.nhl.com/" target="_blank">NHL All-Star break</a> is the perfect time to get caught up on player stats and to take a look at their performance during the first half of the season. I haven't published anything for a while and I've been dying to do a hockey viz. So I took advantage of the empty schedule, scraped the data, and here are the results.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">My favorite team, the <a href="http://blues.nhl.com/" target="_blank">St. Louis Blues</a>, have caught the NHL by surprise this season. Ever since hiring a new coach, the Blues have been playing the way Blues' fans knew they could play. They have had the talent, they just haven't had the cohesion that a good hockey club needs. Bringing in veteran coach Ken Hitchcock has really turned this team around. At one point this season, the Blues were tied for first in the NHL and are <a href="http://blues.nhl.com/club/standings.htm" target="_blank">neck and neck with 4 other teams</a> for the top spot in the Western Conference.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But how are the individual players performing on the team? I put together two different charts to measure a player's performance compared to the rest of the team. Some of the results shouldn't be too surprising to St. Louis Blues fans.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://blues.nhl.com/club/player.htm?id=8470655" target="_blank">David Backes</a>, the captain for the Blues, not only leads the team in goals and assists, but also has one of the highest Plus/Minus ratings for the team. It should also come as no surprise that <a href="http://blues.nhl.com/club/player.htm?id=8471698" target="_blank">T.J. Oshie</a> is right behind Backes in points, goals, and assists. It should also come as no surprise either that<a href="http://blues.nhl.com/club/player.htm?id=8473534" target="_blank"> Patrik Berglund</a>'s "puck" is that ugly shade of yellow (low Plus/Minus). He has not been very impressive this year. He has had some success initially, but looking at the Streak Meter, his Plus/Minus has remained low and there are just a few dark streaks in his line.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The one result that should encourage the <a href="http://blues.nhl.com/club/player.htm?id=8467890" target="_blank">Barret Jackman</a> haters to rethink their position is his Plus/Minus rating. Even though he is one of a handful of Blues who hasn't scored a goal yet, and his number of assists are below the team average, his "puck" is a bright blue -- meaning he has a high Plus/Minus score. In fact, his Plus/Minus is just below Backes, and just above Oshie. He must be doing something right out on the ice.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Finally, one of the most improved players this season has been <a href="http://blues.nhl.com/club/player.htm?id=8474565" target="_blank">Alex Pietrangelo</a>. He and <a href="http://blues.nhl.com/club/player.htm?id=8474031" target="_blank">Kevin Shattenkirk</a> are part of the top grouping of players who are above the team average in both goals and assists. But take a look at his Streak Meter to see the real story. You can see that during the last month, Pietrangelo has consistently been putting points on the board game after game. A lot of dark blue during the month of January.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">There are a lot more player stats and comparisons to look at. I would like to incorporate averages for the league overall, conference, and division. But I have to admit, it is not easy getting this data. I literally have to copy and paste it from the St. Louis Blues website or the NHL website, page....by.....page. And then I have to format it. If anyone knows of an easier way to get a hold of this data, please let me know in the comments section. I would love to be able to download it so I can put together more visualizations with larger data sets.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And as always, I love to read your comments and feedback about what I publish and any suggestions from other hockey fans about what sorts of stats combinations you would like to see displayed in future postings.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Thanks for reading!</span><br />
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<br />Roberthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09493345809901120130noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2773419610755801735.post-11102951365804877722011-12-18T15:41:00.000-05:002011-12-21T10:00:51.999-05:00PNC 12 Days of Christmas Price Index<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Since 1984, PNC Bank has been issuing their 12 Days of Christmas Price Index. This index is comprised of the costs of all 12 gifts in the song from the 12 Days of Christmas. I have heard of the index in the past, but didn't know that it was PNC who put it together or that they have been doing so since 1984. They have a really fun website this year that involves interactive flash video. You should definitely right click on this link and "open in new tab" and go check it out. I'll wait for ya...</span><br />
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<a href="http://www.pncchristmaspriceindex.com/"><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">PNC 12 Days of Christmas Price Index</span></a><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I would think this could be fun for children or (if you are like me) those who are a child at heart. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Fortunately, PNC makes their <a href="http://content.pncmc.com/live/pnc/microsite/CPI/2011/downloads/CPI_Data_historical_011111.xls">historical data </a> (.xls file) available for the general public. So in an effort to spread some Christmas cheer via interactive data visualizations I put together a dashboard of sorts to explore the Christmas Price Index from 1984 till 2011. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />A couple of interesting tidbits about this data. It appears that the bulk of the cost comes from the Seven Swans a Swimming. And if you look at the yearly trends for a lot of the individual gifts, they tend to have relative periods of stability. Five Golden Rings is the exception to this. Also, any of the gifts that involve people have a gradual slope to them, but that reflects the economics of having to pay people and changes in the minimum wage. To check out their methodology you should go to the <a href="http://content.pncmc.com/live/pnc/microsite/CPI/2011/index.html#media/media">media page</a> for their Price Index and click on the FAQ link.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><u>The Data</u></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Probably one of the most difficult parts of this was the data shaping. Only because I did not want to have to do it manually. I wanted to be able to figure out a way to account for each additional gift that is added each day. The total amount of gifts is not the sum of all 12 days. It is actually Day 1 + Day 1 + Day 2 + Day 1 + Day 2 + Day 3, etc etc. But try as I might, I could not figure out a way to do it before my deadline (I head out of town on the 21st). I am sure there is a Tableau jedi superstar out there who could probably figure it out though.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The data from PNC comes in the form of YEARS in columns and GIFTS in rows, and the COST in each cell. So to prepare it for Tableau, I put it into 4 columns: Date (I used Christmas day), Gift, Cost, and Day of Christmas. Then I realized that in order to show the total number of gifts for each day, I actually had to add in each additional gift under each day. For instance, the Eleven Pipers Piping is listed as both 11 and 12 in the Day of Christmas column for each year. The Five Golden Rings gift is listed as 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, and 12 for each year. Fortunately, I realized that I could use MSAccess to shape the data how I wanted it (which is good because I was actually doing it manually by copying and pasting and doing it that way was killing me).</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><u>Dashboard Design</u></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I am still having problems with sizing containers and worksheets dashboards. Especially when it comes to legends and quick filters. They tend to have this nasty habit of popping out of the layout container when you size one of the items inside the container. Also, I've been having some problems figuring out how to next layout containers. I work on these visualizations as a way to enhance my skills and get better and quicker with Tableau. While I think I have made some good progress, I unfortunately, still do not have a good handle on layout containers and sizing them and other items on dashboards.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><u>Visualizing the Data</u></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">You would think that with the 12 Days of Christmas, I would be able to use custom shapes to represent each of the gifts. Well, I would have if I have better skills and software for designing or editing images. As I mention in my <a href="http://robbsdatavizgallery.blogspot.com/p/about-me.html" target="_blank">About Me</a> I am a data person who dabbles in design. Not to mention, there are so many ways to view this data, and I am working with a small space, I just didn't think there would be any way to provide all the different views of the data, while including the images in an appropriate size.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Oh, and one last thing about the design. Before you dot that "i" or cross that "t" in your comments, I fully realize that red and green are bad colors to use for visualizations. But come on...give me a break! It is Christmas after all!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Have a wonderful holiday and thank you for visiting my blog this year!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">PS: <a href="http://youtu.be/EDBMzGq1vhs" target="_blank">More 12 Days of Christmas fun!</a></span><br />
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<br />Roberthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09493345809901120130noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2773419610755801735.post-78183588661711397052011-12-16T12:53:00.001-05:002011-12-20T19:44:20.454-05:00Lies, Damn Lies, & Statistics<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So I fell in love with data and charts back as an undergrad when I took my Political Science methodology class (thank you Professor Folger). It is then that I learned how they can be used to help explain what happens in the world around us. However, I also learned how they can be manipulated in such a way to create a false explanation or mislead someone. That is why the quote in the title has to be one of my favorite sayings of all time. So much so, that my friends and co-workers roll their eyes every time I say it.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Most of the time the manipulations of data are subtle and those manipulating the data can justify how they are presenting their results. However, sometimes the manipulation is so outlandish you wonder if it was done purposefully or out of incompetence. For instance, for those of you who follow data visualization topics or media watchdog groups, you have probably already heard about the Fox News unemployment chart. I first read about it at </span><a href="http://flowingdata.com/2011/12/12/fox-news-still-makes-awesome-charts/"><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">FlowingData</span></a><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> who links to </span><a href="http://mediamatters.org/blog/201112120005"><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">MediaMatters</span></a><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> about this story. You should definitely check out the comments section for the article at FlowingData for a lively discussion of politics, Fox News, and data.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Here is the Fox News chart for those who missed the story...</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Can you spot what is wrong with this chart? </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Maybe it is the fact that even though the unemployment rate for November is the lowest it has been in all of 2011 (8.6.), they keep it even with the point for October (9.0). I would also like to add the fact that the chart is ugly, difficult to read, and the title is misleading. The chart is titled "Unemployment Rate Under President Obama". Then underneath the chart they mention that it is just for 2011. I would argue that the average attention span of a tv viewer is such that they would look at the title, look at the line in the chart, and by the time they figured it out and the graphic is removed, they come away with the impression that under President Obama the unemployment rate went up and stayed up for the entire Obama presidency to date. Which is definitely just as misleading as the misplacement of the November number.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> So I re-made the Fox News graph using the same data from the </span><a href="http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS14000000"><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Bureau of Labor Statistics</span></a><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">. And this is what I got.</span></div>
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ke2QevHwaFA/TuuCWZTapAI/AAAAAAAAAb8/3XBahvUAm6Q/s1600/Corrected+Fox+Chart.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ke2QevHwaFA/TuuCWZTapAI/AAAAAAAAAb8/3XBahvUAm6Q/s1600/Corrected+Fox+Chart.jpg" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It is much cleaner looking than the Fox News chart, you see that November has the lowest unemployment rate in 2011 </span><b><i><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">and</span></i></b><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> it lets you know </span><b><i><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">up top</span></i></b><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> that you are looking at data only from 2011. I left the second line in just in case you haven't been paying attention; the current president in 2011 is Barack Obama. </span>
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The misleading part of my chart however is how I spaced the months apart and it makes the line look a bit flatter than it should be. </span>
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Of course, I took it a step further and made a chart that shows the unemployment trend from 2001 to current.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Now you can see why I felt the Fox News' original title was misleading. We can see that since President Obama took office unemployment soared to a peak in October of 2009 of 10.1. But since then the unemployment rate has been falling. Even though this isn't a true interactive Tableau visualization, you can still over over the data points to see the specifics for that point.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I colored the line using the 3 month moving average. Moving averages are often used to help smooth out data that fluctuates. I am not sure if this is standard practice to use the moving average for the unemployment rate, but I thought it added a layer of depth and better understanding of the trends. In fact, if you look real close at the last few months on the chart, you will see that it is starting to turn an ever so lighter shade of orange. Perhaps we have turned the corner on unemployment?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A longer post than normal, and probably a bit more preachy than usual. However, I have been neglecting my blog for far too long (due mainly to "writer's block"). But I am back! And I have a few more visualizations over the next couple of weeks. Stay tuned...</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>(Update 12/20/2011...Co-workers Sarah and Eli suggested that I place a line in the chart to show where Bush's term in office ends and Obama's begins. Thanks for the suggestion!)</i></span></div>
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>Roberthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09493345809901120130noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2773419610755801735.post-77017214056922323772011-10-06T07:30:00.000-04:002011-10-06T07:48:28.865-04:00FDIC Bank Closings<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue',Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">I continued to explore the data sets at <a href="http://data.gov/">data.gov</a> after I finished my Gov Data contest entry. I stumbled across this data set that was nice and clean and obvious. Sort of makes me wish I submitted this for the contest instead of the renewable energy visual.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue',Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Immediately from this visual you can see that bank closings increased dramatically starting in 2009 with the Atlanta region having the most closings for the last two and a half years. Even when they had a decrease between 2010 and 2011 their percentage of banks closed for the year increased! What is going on in this region? If you click the plus button at the top of the FDIC region, you will see the states within the region. Or, you can filter using the check boxes on the right to view only the Atlanta region.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue',Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">A quick note about the design of this visual. Circles are not necessarily the best way to compare amounts between categories or between dates. However, with the sudden jump in closings I think it might work well for this specific visualization. Also, the great thing about Tableau is the ability to hover over a data point to see the specifics of that point. I have also been playing around with using percent of total in my visualizations. I used size to visualize percent total in a previous viz, and I am using color to visualize it in this particular viz. For whatever reason I feel that percent total can add an additional perspective to the data that is often overlooked. The trick is, how do I best visualize this? I think the color in this viz works better than size in the previous energy viz.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue',Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Let me know what you think!</span></div>
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Roberthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09493345809901120130noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2773419610755801735.post-27289701234742691602011-09-27T19:43:00.000-04:002011-09-28T09:22:59.324-04:00The story so far...<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue',Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Three Tableau contests, and over 1000 page views later I thought I would take a moment to review my latest contest entry and put together a data viz using the page view data for my blog.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue',Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">I first created this blog as a requirement for a Tableau contest, but continued with it as a way to develop my Tableau and data visualization skills. Since then I entered two more Tableau contests and won one of those -- the Evil Viz contest. The most recent was the Gov/Public Data contest. The winner of that contest, <a href="http://www.datarevelations.com/category/vizbizwiz-blog">Steve Wexler</a>, had a great viz with strong analysis. He looked at how <a href="http://www.datarevelations.com/tracking-stds-hiv-and-aids-in-texas">closing family planning clinics effected STD rates in Texas</a>. He did a great job demonstrating the impact that budget and policy decisions have on public health. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue',Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">What impressed me about his data viz is the county mapping he did. That is not a feature of Tableau, and something I have put on my list to learn. So I have downloaded the viz and have started to pick it apart and figure out how he did it so I can possibly use it in a future data viz of my own.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue',Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">For my <a href="http://robbsdatavizgallery.blogspot.com/2011/09/historical-renewable-energy-consumption.html">contest viz</a>, I chose data from the Energy Information Agency. Even though I thought the viz turned out okay, the data itself was <a href="http://flowingdata.com/2011/09/23/5-misconceptions-about-visualization/#more-19000">not very interesting from a visual perspective</a>. I chose to use icons for the sectors and colors for the source of energy. I think the icons made it a bit more difficult to see the line. And the wide variation of the data made it difficult to visualize effectively. I used percent of total for the size of the icons so the icons on the bottom wouldn't just be a big block of yuck. However, I think my overall data analysis suffered because of the small icons along the bottom.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue',Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">While it is fun to enter the contests, I am ultimately blogging to develop my skills. So I appreciate any feedback I get. I especially appreciate the feedback I received from a member of the DC Tableau User Group who shared with me his work around for percent of total when you filter. The <a href="http://www.tableausoftware.com/support/forum">Tableau community</a> is a wealth of knowledge for work arounds and tips and tricks to make Tableau do what you want. I think this is a definite strength of Tableau.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue',Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Bottom line, I learned a lot from this latest contest. I learned from the winning visual and one of the DC User Group members shared a work around with me. I still need to work on improving my technique for visualizing data that has a wide variance. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue',Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">I appreciate everyone who has stopped by and taken a look at my blog and stopped to make a comment. I have no idea if over 1000 page views is a legit milestone or not. But what the heck. It is an excuse to for me to put together a data viz. Blogger is terrible when it comes to letting you access your page view data, so I had to scrape my own dashboard page to get this data to turn it into a viz.</span><br />
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Roberthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09493345809901120130noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2773419610755801735.post-6277664041440905782011-09-15T22:07:00.000-04:002011-09-16T22:22:39.958-04:00Historical Renewable Energy Consumption: Public Data Viz Contest Submission<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Tableau is having another <a href="http://www.blogger.com/"><span id="goog_217754440"></span>data viz contest<span id="goog_217754441"></span></a> with a focus on government or public data. I had some success in <a href="http://robbsdatavizgallery.blogspot.com/2011/07/total-mgw-brought-online-by-year-by_27.html">working with data from the U.S. Energy Information Agency</a> before, so I thought I would use one of their data sets again. I have had my eye on the renewable energy consumption data for awhile and this contest was the motivation to get off my duff and design a data viz with it. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So here is my official submission for the Tableau contest. Take a look, let me know what you think, and wish me luck!</span><br />
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Roberthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09493345809901120130noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2773419610755801735.post-10288084581890224122011-09-06T21:49:00.000-04:002011-09-06T21:49:58.763-04:00Birds do it...Bees do it...<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">A few weeks back I put together a chart using data available from the <a href="http://usanpn.org/">USA National Phenology Network</a> about the <a href="http://robbsdatavizgallery.blogspot.com/2011/08/tiger-salamanders-in-battleboro-nc.html">Tiger Salamanders</a> that were observed in Battleboro, NC. This data set is perfect for someone like me looking for data to use in Tableau. It has a nice variety of data types: categories, dates of observation, latitude/longitude. Makes it fun to play with. For instance, here is a data viz featuring birds and bees that were observed while engaged in reproductive activities.</span><br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="345" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/lXYKGL6MgKM" width="420"></iframe>Roberthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09493345809901120130noreply@blogger.com1