What is Business Intelligence? During a conference, we were asked to explain our understanding of Business Intelligence in a one minute video clip. Attention is scarce – so why not? When it comes to [...]

Motion arouses emotion: The streetcar in the look of our Business Intelligence software DeltaMaster will roll through the city of Nuremberg for a further year. The DeltaMaster tram has many fans – both [...]

Found this, the other day. In “Die Welt”. A national, daily German newspaper. It’s scaring its readers. With a dumb chart or, as they call it, "Chart of doom". For stocks. Like in 1929. A memorable [...]

Drawing the same things in the same way is good. You remember it easier. For example: Current-numbers are always filled. Forecast numbers are always hollow. Also works when it's pretty small. Source: [...]

Animating statistical data can be tricky. Nevertheless, motion pictures are a step up from photos. We want to get closer to the action. We don’t want to just see results; we want to see how we got there [...]

If you want to compare something, put it on the same level. Works with numbers, too. Even when they are connected. Like in time series. Jan did it like this. The small lines where concatenated before [...]

Actually, we wanted to keep this to ourselves a bit longer. But before someone else copies it and takes all the credit, we’re announcing it now: Peeking through the keyhole is out. Panoramic views are [...]

kicker magazine still isn't doing sparklines. So I'll do them for you: This is how they played soccer. So far. PosTeamPldWDLGoalsDiff.PtsPerformance 1Bayern München17121443:103337 2Borussia Dortmund17104335:122334 3Schalke [...]

Together with Rolf Hichert, we have been battling against graphical opulence and anorexic content in reporting since 2007. Recently, we hosted our tenth, joint Advanced Seminar on Industrial Reporting [...]

I was tough on red. It's a signal for bad. What do we use for good? Green? Possible. Blue? Possible, too. I am generous with colors for good. Thus, this chart is okay. (Not the numbers: aggregated without [...]

Statistical significance has an outstanding reputation. But does it deserve it? How significant is your knowledge of significance? Take this test to find out!

Rolf had a great idea: A map is easy to understand, because rivers are blue and forest is green. It took a while before everyone acknowledged that. Maps are understood, if they adhere to the common [...]

Presenting variances and changes appropriately is a true art form that extends well beyond budgeting issues.

Visualization often focuses on changes in shares which are compared to a total. Stacked column graphs which add up to 100% are a common chart type. But not for more than three shares at once. Readability [...]

Although we are software designers, we can learn from 100 years of automobile history. If we focus on the right issues and are not tempted by superficial analogy. Thus, we can e.g. substitute ludicrous [...]

The recent European Union's summit was exhausting. Not just for politicians but also for information designers. Comparing two measurements is (in some cases) already tempting. Three is even harder. In [...]

Last week, a sales region was charged with underestimating sales elasticity and letting a price increase lead to a drop in sales volume. The verdict this week? The sales region is found ‘not guilty’ [...]

There were nice charts in the German journal "Bild der Wissenschaft" 3/2006. They showed risk maps for Germany. Sadly, they weren’t readable. A little trick and they would have been brilliant. A color [...]

The analytic power of a simple ranking can even make complex analyses easier to understand. Automated comparisons of a variety of rankings and creation of meta rankings offers insight into distinctive [...]

What is better: tables or charts? That was discussed in the past. Some said a chart is worth a thousand words. I think a picture is worth a thousand words. And most charts need a thousand words to be [...]

Purchasing is the ugly stepchild and sleeping beauty rolled into one. If you can wake it from its spell, you will reap in treasures of information. What are we purchasing? How can we save? How much? EDS [...]

In our company, people think a lot about how to present figures well. 'Well' means that everybody is able to quickly grasp what they mean. That gives us more time to brood over their impact. Things [...]

In principle, each analysis is a comparison, because only classification in context provides useful conclusions. What can a picture of Saturn tell us if we don't have a relative idea of its size? How [...]