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Interview with Sebastian Schmidt, SKOPOS ELEMENTS Data viz – and the need to get involved. "If this is not done, the important market research data loses relevance and visibility in the company."
Interview Sebastian Schmidt, SKOPOS ELEMENTS
Data viz – and the need to get involved.
"If this is not done, the important market research data loses relevance and visibility in the company."
Presenting important data in an appealing way is of the utmost relevance in market research. Not yet familiar with data visualisation tools like Tableau? Perhaps you could use a few tips and tricks. SKOPOS ELEMENTS now offers help with their interactive workshops. Sebastian Schmidt reveals what you can expect.
Your WoM web seminar "Tableau as a kickstarter for market research: from 0 to 100 in three workshops" promises a lot. So three workshops alone are enough to become an expert in the field of data visualisation?
Sebastian Schmidt: That would be very tempting, of course. However, becoming an expert in the field of data visualization is not so much the focus of the workshops. Rather, we would like to enable market researchers to analyze survey data using Tableau within the framework of a compact program. What we can promise at this point: The workshop series can really save market research departments a lot of time, because we not only build visualizations in Tableau, but also talk about the topic of data structures and how to get there.
What were the three biggest data visualisation faux pas you have ever seen?
Sebastian Schmidt: The top 3 are difficult. My absolute favorite is actually this visualization, which sums up some of the challenges well. To be honest, really good data visualization is also a demanding craft that is not limited to the application of a software. That's why we have experts in our team and I myself can only give the tip to keep things as simple as possible and to focus on the essential message. From time to time, I find myself trying to do too much with wacky diagrams, colors, proportions and calculations.
What is the idea behind your new workshop programme? What do you hope to gain from it?
Sebastian Schmidt: The idea for the workshop program was actually born out of requests from our customers. Therefore, although it seems new, it has already been tried and tested in practice.
To briefly elaborate: It is no secret that companies are increasingly concerned with data. Business intelligence tools such as Tableau or Microsoft Power BI are gaining acceptance as a common umbrella for creating and distributing data. In them, everything from financial to survey to weather data can not only be visualized, but also analytically combined. On the one hand, this offers market researchers a great deal of analytical potential, but on the other hand, it also puts them under pressure to get involved. If this is not done, the important market research data loses relevance and visibility in the company.
With our workshop program, we aim to give market researchers an understanding of three facets in a compact program:
1. What does the data model for Tableau ideally look like in order to be able to efficiently create visualizations on this basis? After all, anyone who has tried to import SPSS data into Tableau will have painfully realized that working this way is no fun.
2. In a very practical way, we build classic market research visualizations with the workshop participants on the basis of the data model and show how to quickly generate initial evaluations.
3. Depending on the competence of the team and the company, the way to get your own data into Tableau is quite different. Who takes care of the preparation? How can these processes be automated? And how can different data sources be connected in the future? In the third part, we will look at this in the context of a department-specific data strategy.
Our goal is to enable market research and insights departments to evaluate the use of Tableau for themselves and to avoid a lot of initial frustration. To this end, we either provide a data set ourselves for the workshops or take on the data of our customers in order to be able to assess even more realistically what can be done with the data.
There are several other visualisation software besides Tableau. Why should you go for Tableau?
Sebastian Schmidt: Basically, we always look for the most suitable solution for our customers depending on their requirements. Therefore, not everything has to be implemented in Tableau.
Personally, we find the use of Tableau particularly charming when it comes to different data sources that may need to be visualized together and where there is still "room for improvement". In other words, where the number and size of data sources will grow and you are looking for a solution that doesn't get tired so quickly. Furthermore, we find Tableau to be quite complete when it comes to more IT-oriented topics in terms of security, access rights, hosting, etc.
Finally, we enjoy the great flexibility: from extremely interactive dashboards to export-optimized displays and from sales data to text analysis results to weather data, we have implemented everything and always found a solution to make our customers happy.
Are there also trends in data visualisation that need to be considered in the design? For example, is a certain colour "out"?
Sebastian Schmidt: What we have seen in the past is the tendency to integrate as many new, cool features as possible into a dashboard to show what is possible. As a result, the visualizations often looked cluttered and it was hard to find your way around.
Fortunately, the trend is moving more and more towards the person who will ultimately use the dashboard being significantly involved in the design. When we design dashboards, we talk about the wishes of the target groups right from the start and define requirements together. Test users often accompany the development, which increases acceptance and prevents undesirable developments.
Will you also conduct your web seminar in workshop style? Is interaction required?
Sebastian Schmidt: Since we will only give an overview in the short time available, the interaction will be limited to a Q&A session. In fact, though, it's a fair question: I'm taking this with me for Week of Market Research 2023. ?
And we can promise that the actual workshops will be completely interactive. And there will even be homework if you wish.
What exactly does the funny yellow/blue graphic that appears in the seminar announcement mean?
Sebastian Schmidt: When I first read the question, I was surprised myself that we included a real, political statement in our announcement.
In fact, the explanation is simpler: our mascot Elemo represents the connection between the world of data and the human, which sums up our corporate mission. We believe that we need to understand what makes people tick in order to interpret data correctly. However, the human requirement can also be extended to our customers: We make data and results understandable, even if they are complex. The prerequisite for this is that we take the time to understand the demands and wishes of our customers in a first step. This means that data science is not something that takes place alone in front of a PC in the basement, but rather the interaction of data analysis and empathetic cooperation.
Who should not miss your web seminar?
Sebastian Schmidt:
- Teams from Market Research and Customer Insights who have tried Tableau and found it difficult to visualize their survey data in Tableau.
- Teams that are interested in Tableau or where Tableau is already in use in the company and do not want to take the annoying experiences under "first".
- Everyone who is looking for a compact and yet well-founded introduction to Tableau and market research data, in order to be able to evaluate the use of business intelligence tools for their purposes in general.
ABOUT:
Sebastian Schmidt is Managing Director of SKOPOS ELEMENTS. He is responsible for the area of customer analytics and reporting. His focus is on combining market research with data science methods. With more than 10 years of research experience, he knows about the special requirements that market researchers have for data, methods and result reports.
This interview was originally published in German on marktforschung.de – here
