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Re: Accessibility of Tableau data dashboards?

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From: Olaf Drümmer
Date: May 25, 2016 4:14AM

> On 24.05.2016, at 23:03, Kelley Howell < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:
>
> But then it occurred to me that if you are Edward Tufte, the data visualization genius, he would want his data to tell a story. Since stories are told in words, then we can use words.

I fully agree with regard to carefully crafted, static data visualization (serving for the presentation of something one could call a story, though I am not sure the story could in all cases be easily synthesized from the actual presentation, but at least some decent text based representation could probably be derived; do not forget though that seemingly obvious implicit properties, like the steep slope of a line, is not easily derived as being relevant from a given visualization form).

When using tools like Tableau, the situation (at least from y point of view) is slightly different, as they serve both presentation and exploration. And it is the latter that is a major challenge.

> So, if you have a cluster map, you could write the program to read the description of the cluster map's output. Bear with me because this is off the cuff, not thought out, but I hope it gets across my general idea.
>
> I am curious if you think this would be more useful than what we have now?

I like your examples. If someone could take the time and do some research on how far this can be taken, that would be very cool.

> Example 1:
>
> Overview: This cluster map is showing the number of foreclosures in differently bounded areas which are identified as neighborhood, ZIP Code, City, County, State, Region, and Country.
>
> Specific View: This cluster map shows the top 50 areas with the highest number of foreclosures in ZIP codes (and corresponding Place Names) located in the United States. From largest to smallest, starting with largest:
>
> "Very large cluster. 527 homes in foreclosure in the Zip Code 67891 with the Place San Antonio Texas.
> Very large cluster. 498 homes in foreclosure in the Zip Code 33415 in Newport, Tennessee."
>
> Example 2:
> Or a description of a bar chart:
> "This bar chart displays the demographic profile of people shopping for Nike shoes.
>
> Gender. 60% men, 35% women, 5% other are shopping for Nike shoes.
> Area type: 35% suburubanites, 25% urbanities, 30% rural residents shopping for Nike shoes.
>
> And so forth.


Olaf