Angela Shen-Hsieh wants to save us from our data -- the spreadsheets, databases, and search-engine results that seem to offer infinite data points but few answers. The Harvard-trained architect is the president and CEO of Visual i/o, a company taking information visualization to a new level. By combining back-end IT systems with clear user interfaces, Visual i/o helps executives, managers, and consumers make better decisions.
This Sales Pipeline Viewer, for example, helps a manager track the progress of each sales rep's potential deals from qualification through the close. Each dot represents a potential deal, and its size, color, and height represent certain facts about the deal. For instance, in this starting view, the size of the dot indicates its priority, the color indicates the probability that it will close, and the height of the dot within its box, the expected revenue.
Using the preferences box at the right, a manager could change the meaning of those visual indicators, choosing to have size represent the likelihood of a close, or color to represent profit. Change your preferences with the drop down menus to see the various possible ways to view the data.
The scroll bar at the bottom of the chart helps managers view sales data over time. Move the bar to the right and you'll see how the various deals progressed through the sales pipeline.
At any one point in time, the numbers running vertically to the right of the chart indicate the total number of active deals for each sales rep, while the numbers running horizontally along the bottom indicate the number of deals in each stage of the pipeline.
In addition, the chart is a "heat map" -- the more deals in any one box, the darker the background. This give managers a warning of potential problems: Bob, for instance, might have too many deals in the proposal stage than he can handle.
The idea behind the Sales Pipeline Viewer is that it gives managers a way to extract meaning from complex data sets. Play around, and see what you find.
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