Data Visualization

Chapter 2
Data Visualization

Solutions:

1.
Average Performance Customer Years with
Salesperson Total Sales ($) Bonus Previous Years ($) Accounts Company
Smith, Michael 325,001 12,499 124 14
Yu, Joe 13,678 240 9 7
Reeves, Bill 452,359 21,987 175 21
Hamilton, Joshua 87,424 7,643 28 3
Harper, Derek 87,654 1,250 21 4
Quinn, Dorothy 234,091 14,568 48 9
Graves, Lorrie 379,402 27,981 121 12
Sun, Yi 31,734 673 7 1
Thompson, Nicole 127,845 13,323 17 3

Some of the changes made in this table include:

Deleting unnecessary gridlines in the table
Removing bolded font except for column titles
Left align text column and right align numerical columns
Adding commas to dollar values to ease readability and removing unnecessary digits to right of
decimal place
Sorting the values.

2. a. The readability of the table could be improved by: removing unnecessary gridlines, left-aligning the
first column because it contains text entries, right aligning all other columns because they contain
numerical values, reducing the number of digits displayed by displaying numerical values in millions
or billions of dollars and using shading to differentiate the columns. Note that we could also sort
these values by GDP in 2010 if this was the value of most interest.

2-1
 Data Visualization

b.
Gross Domestic Product (in Billions of US Dollars, $)
Country 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010
Albania 7.4 8.1 9.7 11.6 10.8 10.6
Argentina 169.7 198.0 241.0 301.3 285.1 339.6
Australia 704.5 758.3 916.9 983.0 934.2 1178.8
Austria 272.9 290.7 336.8 375.8 344.5 341.4
Belgium 335.6 355.4 408.5 451.7 421.4 416.5
Brazil 756.8 935.5 1175.0 1407.0 1370.8 1782.4
Canada 1056.8 1193.9 1332.1 1404.8 1245.2 1469.9
Costa Rica 18.9 21.2 24.7 28.0 28.0 33.9
Czech Republic 111.7 128.7 156.6 194.6 170.9 172.6
Finland 169.9 180.2 214.8 236.6 206.7 207.9
France 1915.0 2015.0 2312.8 2541.6 2367.9 2301.8
Germany 2516.9 2632.8 2984.7 3258.9 2973.7 2966.1
Greece 217.2 234.3 273.8 307.1 292.6 269.1
Ireland 177.7 195.3 229.6 233.3 199.5 186.2
Israel 122.4 133.2 153.4 185.7 178.7 199.8
Italy 1597.3 1661.9 1892.7 2063.9 1900.0 1836.9
Mexico 823.3 928.5 1011.9 1085.6 858.3 1010.3
Netherlands 567.3 600.9 694.8 775.4 708.0 700.8
New Zealand 108.9 105.1 129.0 125.7 112.9 136.2
Peru 72.3 84.4 98.5 117.8 120.4 144.3
Poland 267.8 300.1 371.9 463.4 382.6 413.4
Portugal 165.3 172.9 200.1 218.7 206.0 200.5
Saudi Arabia 317.4 358.4 386.7 477.3 374.4 436.2
Singapore 119.7 139.1 167.0 179.3 173.8 209.7
South Africa 220.3 232.2 254.4 247.5 256.9 328.8
Spain 1012.0 1100.0 1293.2 1459.0 1361.0 1287.9
Switzerland 350.6 368.2 409.2 474.7 464.9 498.2
Turkey 425.5 467.9 579.0 656.6 557.7 655.8
United Kingdom 2030.3 2178.0 2504.6 2381.9 1959.2 2005.6
United States 12579.7 13336.3 14010.9 14369.5 14113.3 14601.6

3. a. The chart contains unnecessary gridlines, the y-axis label values are spaced much too close together,
the shading of the chart does not add value.

b.
250000

200000
Revenue ($)

150000

100000

50000

0
Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec

Note that here we have also added small markers on the line chart at each data point to indicate that
the data are not continuous.

2-2
 Data Visualization

4.

a. The PivotTable shows that accounting major has the greatest number of students with 28 students.

b. Accounting has the highest average starting monthly salary at $4020.

c. By changing the Value Field Settings for Monthly Salary from Average to Max, we see that an
accounting student has the highest starting salary at $5650.
By changing the Value Field Settings for Monthly Salary to Min, we see that a management student
has the lowest starting salary at $2240.

5.

a. 13 franchises have between 0 and 9999 locations.

b. 3 franchises have more than 30,000 locations.

2-3
 Data Visualization

6. a.
4.50
4.00
3.50
3.00

Price ($)
2.50
2.00
1.50
1.00
0.50
0.00
1 3 5 7 9 11 13 15 17 19 21 23 25 27 29 31 33 35
Month

Gasoline prices were relatively steady for about the first 16 to 18 months and then increased rapidly
through about month 25 before falling before rising in the last few months. Overall the price of
gasoline appears to be increasing over the 36 months, but it is not a constant increase.

b.

4.50
4.00
3.50
3.00
Price ($)

2.50
2.00
1.50
1.00
0.50
0.00
1 3 5 7 9 11 13 15 17 19 21 23 25 27 29 31 33 35
Month

The trendline confirms that there is an overall linear increase in the price of gasoline over the 36
months.

2-4
 Data Visualization

7. a.
American Insurance Top Six Term-Life Insurance
Salespeople
60

50

Contracts Sold
40

30

20

10

0
Harish David Kristina Steven Tim Mona
Salesperson

b. and c.
American Insurance Top Six Term-Life Insurance
Salespeople
60
53
50
Contracts Sold

41 39
40

30 24 23
19
20

10

0
Tim David Mona Harish Steven Kristina
Salesperson

Sorting can be done by selecting the data in Excel and then using the Sort function in the Sort &
Filter group under the DATA tab. Data labels can be added by right clicking on one of the columns
in the chart and selecting Add Data Labels.

8. a. It is difficult to distinguish the relative sizes of the different pieces of the pie chart. It can also be
difficult to distinguish the different colors in the pie chart. Finally, it takes a lot of work for the
reader to match the salesperson names to the different pieces of the pie chart.

b. A sorted column or bar chart would be preferable to display these data.

2-5
 Data Visualization

c.

American Insurance Top Six Term-Life Insurance

Salespeople

% of Total Contracts Sold

30.0% 26.6%
25.0%
20.6% 19.6%
20.0%

15.0% 12.1% 11.6%

9.5%
10.0%

5.0%

0.0%
Tim David Mona Harish Steven Kristina

Salesperson

9. a.

900 Four Cylinder

800 Six Cylinder
700
600
Frequency

500
400
300
200
100
0
Red Black Green White

Exterior Color

b. All customers preferred the six cylinder engine type, regardless of which exterior color they
preferred. However, few customers who preferred red or black exterior colors preferred the four
cylinder engine, but customers who preferred the white exterior color were more evenly split
between the four and six cylinder engine. If this is a representative sample of customers, it appears
that the company will sell very few red models with four cylinder engines, but may sell more white
models with four cylinder engines.

2-6
 Data Visualization

10. a.

Smartphone Ownership By Age

1.2
Smartphone Other Cell No Cell Phone
1

Ownership (%)
0.8

0.6

0.4

0.2

0
18-24 25-34 35-44 45-54 55-64 65+
Age Category

b.

Smartphone Ownership By Age

0.7
Smartphone Other Cell No Cell Phone
0.6
Ownership (%)

0.5

0.4

0.3

0.2

0.1

0
18-24 25-34 35-44 45-54 55-64 65+
Age Category

c. Younger respondents are more likely to own smartphones; older respondents are more likely to have
other cell phones or to own no cell phone, particularly those in the 65+ age category.
The clustered column chart makes it easier to compare the relative percent ownership values within
an age category. It is much easier to interpret from the clustered bar chart that a greater percentage of
respondents age 18-24 own smartphones than other cell phones than it is to interpret this from the
stacked bar chart.

2-7
 Data Visualization

11. a.
Percent Time Spent on Tasks by Store Managers
Attending Required Meetings Preparing Business Reports

Customer Interaction Idle

Olympia

Boise

Location
Missoula

Bend

Portland

Seattle

0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%

Time Spent (%)

b.
Percent Time Spent on Tasks by Store Managers
Idle Customer Interaction
Preparing Business Reports Attending Required Meetings

Olympia

Boise
Location

Missoula

Bend

Portland

Seattle

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70%

Time Spent (%)

2-8
 Data Visualization

c.

Note that here we have taken care to make sure that the horizontal axes in each bar chart have the
same range (0 – 70%) for easy comparisons among locations. We have also retained the vertical
gridlines here to ease comparisons, but this is mainly a matter of stylistic preference.

d. Both the stacked and clustered bar charts become very busy for these data, so many readers will
prefer the individual bar charts. However, some readers may prefer the clustered bar chart which
may make comparisons between locations easier.

e. The managers in Boise, Bend and Olympia spend more time (relatively) in customer interactions
than managers in Seattle, Missoula and Portland. The Portland manager in particular appears to
spend an excessive time attending required meetings while the manager in Missoula appears to have
more idle time.

2-9
 Data Visualization

12. a. The screen shot below shows the first 15 respondents of the survey results with the blank cells
highlighted.

b. Question 1: Respondents 4, 18
Question 2: Respondents 8, 74, 87, 100
Question 3: Respondents 3, 4, 78, 101
Question 4: Respondents 6, 15, 23, 76, 82, 106
Question 5: None
Question 6: Respondents 5, 70, 86
Question 7: Respondents 34, 81
Question 8: Respondents 82, 96
Question 9: Respondents 23, 50
Question 10: Respondents 15, 37, 45
Question 4 has the highest non-response rate with six respondents not providing answers.

2 - 10