People are the only active element of data visualization, and as such, they are the most important. We briefly describe the roles of several people that participate in our project, but we mainly focus on the person who is going to analyze and visualize the data.
After the meeting, we get together with our colleague, Samantha, who is the analyst that supports the sales and executive teams. She currently manages a series of highly personalized Excels that she creates from standard reports generated within the customer invoice and project management system. Her audience ranges from the CEO down to sales managers. She is not a pushover, but she is open to try new techniques, especially given that the sponsor of this project is the CEO of QDataViz, Inc.
As a data discovery user, Samantha possesses the following traits:
She has a stake in the project's success or failure. She, along with the company, stands to grow as a result of this project, and most importantly, she is aware of this opportunity.
She is focused on grasping what we teach her and is self-motivated to continue learning after the project is finished. The cause of her drive is unimportant as long as she remains honest.
She understands that data is a passive element that is open to diverse interpretations by different people. She resists basing her arguments on deceptive visualization techniques or data omission.
She does not endanger her job and company results following every technological fad or whimsical idea. However, she realizes that technology does change and that a new approach can foment breakthroughs.
She loves finding anomalies in the data and being the reason that action is taken to improve QDataViz, Inc. As a means to achieve what she loves, she understands how to apply functions and methods to manipulate data.