Publications by Tim Bock
How to Create an Online Choice Simulator
What is a choice simulator? A choice simulator is an online app or an Excel workbook that allows users to specify different scenarios and get predictions. Here is an example of a choice simulator. Choice simulators have many names: decision support systems, market simulators, preference simulators, desktop simulators, conjoint simulators, and c...
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Layered Data Visualizations Using R, Plotly, and Displayr
If you have tried to communicate research results and data visualizations using R, there is a good chance you will have come across one of its great limitations. R is painful when you need to create visualizations by layering multiple visual elements on top of each other. In other words, R can be painful if you want to assemble many visual elemen...
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Create and Update PowerPoint Reports using R
In my sordid past, I was a data science consultant. One thing about data science that they don’t teach you at school is that senior managers in most large companies require reports to be in PowerPoint. Yet, I like to do my more complex data science in R – PowerPoint and R are not natural allies. As a result, creating an updating PowerPoint r...
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Create Chart Templates Using R Functions
R functions can be used to create chart templates, which keep the look and feel of reports consistent. This post gives step by step guide on how to create chart templates using R functions. R users should already be familiar with calling functions to run calculations and draw plots. However, if you are using a function to create a plot, you need ...
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7 Alternatives to Word Clouds for Visualizing Long Lists of Data
Creating a meaningful visualization from data with long lists can be challenging. While word clouds are often the popular choice, they are not always the best option. This post illustrates seven alternatives to word clouds that can be used to visualize data from long lists, each has its own trade-offs. The visualization examples in this post use ...
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Improve the Quality of Data Visualizations Using Redundancy
Using multiple visual elements to represent one variable in a chart can increase accuracy and improve readability. This is called adding redundancy or redundant encoding and, if done right, it will improve the chances of a reader interpreting a visualization quickly and correctly. Redundant elements can be color, shape, size, labels, and more. ...
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12 Visualizations to Show a Single Number
Infographics, dashboards, and reports often need to highlight or visualize a single number. But how do you highlight a single number so that it has an impact and looks good? It can be a big challenge to make a lonely, single number look great. In this post, I show 12 different ways of representing a single number. Most of these visualizations hav...
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How to Create an Interactive Infographic
An interactive infographic can be used to communicate a lot of information in an engaging way. With the right tools, they are also relatively straightforward to create. In this post, I show step-by-step how to create this interactive infographic, using Canva, Displayr and R code. The interactive example is designed so that the user can change th...
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Dashboard Design: 8 Types of Online Dashboards
What type of online dashboard will work best for your data? This post reviews eight types of online dashboards to assist you in choosing the right approach for your next dashboard. Note that there may well be more than eight types of dashboards, I am sure I will miss a few. If so, please tell me in the comments section of this post. KPI Online D...
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Using Heatmap Coloring on a Density Plot Using R to Visualize Distributions
Lots of different visualizations have been proposed for understanding distributions. In this post, I am going show how to create my current favorite, which is a density plot using heatmap shading. I find them particularly useful for showing duration data. Example: time to purchase The table below shows the number of days it took 200 people to pur...
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