Why 3D? Why AR? Why not just live with our existing flat screens and just see data in bar charts? Today's newsletter looks at the core problem we are solving, and there is a new video/use case in financial servicers to demonstrate... can you provide feedback?
The Problem
The core problem is that over-simplified bar and line charts are the primary way knowledge workers look at business data. Flat screen data visualizations often:
- over-simplify to avoid visual crowding
- don't provide clear enough mental models of the underlying data
- hide the risk that is only present in the details
- aggregate data and lose credibility
- bore the audience when you need their attention the most
All of us, including business leaders and non-experts, miss important truths that could lead to better data driven decisions.
The Solution
Flow is a complete re-think of how we interact and collaborate with data, but it is also designed to activate the parts of the brain that are responsible for seeing relationships and building long-term memories.
- With 3D, and especially with stereo vision in AR, you can see much more detail than on flat screen.
- The additional detail helps to see risk signals that are missing obfuscated in the aggregate view.
- Multiple data properties can be put on the additional axis, enabling attributes of the data to become co-present. This keeps your eye from having to move around a screen and the brain doesn't have to work so hard to see correlations.
Example of 2D to 3D data viz for financial services
Based on a customer request, I used Flow to look at the technical indicators MACD (moving average convergence divergence) and RSI (relative strength index) for Intel stock for the past two years. (The video below explains these indicators a bit.)
Is 3D a powerful way to see these kind of indicators? I think being able to get the additional dimensions into your field of view, as well as the shape of the data structure, give you a clearer mental model than on flat screen. What do you think?
