AS18: Interactive Data Visualisation for Agile Analytics Workshop Slides

Abstract

The importance of good visualisation is well known and widely discussed. However, the utility of data visualisation and dashboards is hugely increased by providing the end-user interactivity and an ability to update parameters and perform ‘what-if’ analyses. Fortunately, in today’s world a multitude of tools exist to support web-based, interactive visualisation that can empower users to make informed decisions and conduct timely analyses. Unfortunately, for many analytics professionals the technical requirements of developing such tools are prohibitive, and result in such visualisations becoming the domain of the IT professional and software engineers. This means that such tools end up as the final destination of an analytics project, and the opportunity to capture early insights and to create quicker wins for clients are lost. In short, analytics projects become waterfall rather than agile, with all the limitations this brings. The purpose of this workshop is to introduce participants without a software engineering background to web-based interactive visualisation development from the ground up. The session will cover setting up and configuring a web server to host your tool (using Amazon Web Services); building an interactive user-interface and analytical models (using R); and examples of how such tools can be used to introduce more agility to your analytics projects.