DM Review Contest Guidlines
copy-n-pasted below is the text of the contest guidlines...
DM Review 2005 Data Visualization Competition:
Data warehouses have been around for a decade and business intelligence
is an accepted business practice. Now it is time to focus on the only
part of business intelligence that most people see: the presentation of
information to those responsible for doing something about it.
DM Review is sponsoring this competition to discover and recognize best
practices for data visualization. We are looking for the graphical
presentation of data for four separate real-world scenarios. Each involves
the display of quantitative business data ? three scenarios are prescribed,
and one allows you to solve a data visualization problem of your own choosing.
This is your chance to demonstrate your talent and to contribute to our effort
to promote data visualization excellence.
Judging criteria:
Winning entries will be selected on the basis of their ability to present
graphical solutions that effectively communicate the data and the intended
messages provided in the scenarios. For our purposes, effective communication
is defined as a solution that achieves the following:
Clarity: The data and message can be understood easily,
fully and accurately.
Efficiency: The data and message can be understood quickly.
Scenario 1
This scenario involves the display of departmental salary expenses.
It is used by the VP of Human Resources to compare the salary expense
of the company's eight departments as they fluctuate through time, in
total and subdivided between the exempt and non-exempt employees.
Scenario 2
This scenario involves the display of employee salaries per salary grade,
with a comparison of male vs. female salaries and a comparison of actual
salaries to the prescribed salary ranges per salary grade. The purpose is
to detect possible inequities between males and females and to determine how
closely the prescribed salary ranges are being observed.
Scenario 3
What appears in the following spreadsheet is the raw data from which the
contents of a sales dashboard should be derived. The level of detail
reflected in the data need not appear on the dashboard but ought to be
presented at a level that sales executives can use to monitor sales
performance on a daily basis. As a dashboard, all of the information
should fit on a single screen. Prominence should be given to the major
metrics and attention should be drawn to any measures that indicate poor
performance in relation to the targets. The dashboard should be designed
in a way that allows sales executives to know at a glance any areas of sales ?
both problems and opportunities ? that might require their attention.
Scenario 4
There are no specific guidelines for this scenario. You may present any
real-world data and message that can be addressed through a data visualization.
It may be a graph, a dashboard or any other visual presentation of quantitative
data. This is your opportunity to showcase a data visualization of which you
are particularly proud.
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