DV
Assignment
SMTN’s Chapter 8 - Table design
T.1. Suggest an additional idea/technique to review tables
The document “A template for writing a review of a data table” outlines several ideas to evaluate a table design critically. Suggest at least one additional idea/technique to add to the document.
T.2. Quiz on table design
Score a 100% on this “A quiz on table design”. After taking the quiz, click on View Score and submit a screenshot (pdf) showing total points and your email address.
T.3. Improving table design for a scientific manuscript
In Unit 5 of the course “Writing in the Sciences” in Coursera, Professor Sainani discusses how important tables are in scientific manuscripts. She explains that tables are used to provide precise values and that each table should have a title. She also discusses how important it is to format tables correctly.
Using the concepts learned in the book chapters and the document “A template for writing a review of a data table” improve the table below and submit a screenshot (image) showing a “better” version of the table. Also, submit the original Google Sheet or Microsoft Excel document. You will need to type the values into your spreadsheet yourself.
T.4. Improving the table on “Quarter-to-date sales rep. performance summary”
The following table has been prepared for a regional sales manager to track the quarter-to-date performance of her sales representatives, including their relative performance. Given this purpose, take a look at the table.
Some of the problems in the design and the proposed solutions are listed below.
| # | Problem in the design | Solution |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | The grid that delineates the columns and rows is far too heavy and isn’t necessary at all. | Eliminate the grid entirely, using only white space to delineate the columns and the rows. |
| 2 | The combined use of boldfacing and gray fill color to delineate the headers is excessive, grabbing too much attention relative to the values. | Set the headers apart from the values using a rule line and nothing more. The headers could be boldfaced to set them apart further, but this really isn’t necessary and would make them more prominent than the values they describe. |
| 3 | The center alignment of the headers fails to preview the alignment of their values. | Align the headers consistently with the values they describe. |
| 4 | The values in the % of Quota column aren’t clear without percentage signs. | Format the values in the percentage column with percentage signs. |
| 5 | Nothing in the columns that contain dollar values indicates the unit of measure. | Format the summary values in the columns containing dollars to clarify the unit of measure, assuming that the context does not require further clarification to indicate U.S. dollars, Canadian dollars, etc. |
| 6 | Overall performance for the entire group cannot be determined without summing the values in the columns. | Add column summaries to provide measures of overall performance. |
| 7 | Nothing has been done to make it easy to compare the performance of the individual sales representatives. | To enhance the comparison of sales representative performance, sort the rows by bookings, and add a column that expresses the bookings of each sales representative as a percentage of total bookings. |
| 8 | The most important and useful set of quantitative values is bookings, yet they are in the last column, farthest from the names of the sales representatives, so a great deal of eye movement is required to pair them. | Place the column of bookings values immediately to the right of the sales representatives’ names. |
| 9 | The Variance to Quota and % of Quota columns appear before the Bookings column, which is used to calculate them. | Place the calculated columns containing the bookings-to-quota variance and bookings percentage-of-quota values to the right of both the bookings. |
Addressing all the proposed solutions, design a more effective table. Submit a screenshot (image) of your table. Also, submit the original Google Sheet or the Microsoft Excel document.
Data: Quarter-to-date.xlsx.
Note: This question is adapted from “Excercise #1” in the “Practice in Table Design” section of the SMTN book.
T.5. Improving the table on “Mortgage loan rates”
Mortgage brokers use the following table to look up the mortgage rates offered by several lenders. Brokers use this when they need to know the current rates offered by a particular lender for all of its loan programs. Given this purpose, take a look at the table.
Some of the problems in the design and the proposed solutions are listed below.
| # | Problem in the design | Solution |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | The information is not grouped and sorted properly for looking up all the rates for a single lender. | Place the lender names in the first column, followed by the other categorical values, with the rates in the right column. |
| 2 | The Points and the Lender columns are not adequately delineated. There is not enough white space to view them separately without effort. | Sometimes when a column with right-aligned values is positioned immediately to the left of a column with left-aligned values, there isn’t enough white space between them to separate them adequately. This can be corrected with most software programs by placing a blank column between them to insert more white space. |
| 3 | The fluctuating precision of the values in the Points and Rate columns makes them difficult to read when scanning vertically. | Select the appropriate numeric precision; then format all values to display this level of precision. |
| 4 | The row headers (i.e., values in the Loan Type, Term, and Points columns) are unnecessarily repeated on each row, making it difficult to see when one group ends, and the next begins. | When rows are grouped by categorical values that appear to the left of the quantitative values, you only need to display those values on the first row of the group and on the first row of each new page that contains the group. |
Addressing all the proposed solutions, design a more effective table. Submit a screenshot (image) of your table. Also, submit the original Google Sheet or the Microsoft Excel document.
Data: Mortgage-loan-rates.xlsx.
Note: This question is adapted from “Excercise #2” in the “Practice in Table Design” section of the SMTN book.
T.6. Finding design solutions for a table “Marketing department expenses”
The following table is used by the manager of the marketing department to examine the previous year’s expenses in total and by quarter for each type of expense. You see below the top portion of a page that is several pages into the table. The marketing manager needs help with this table.
Some of the problems in the design are:
- The information is not conveniently arranged for the examination of expenses by expense type per quarter. The current arrangement would require a great deal of searching and summing to generate the needed information.
- The table contains values that aren’t necessary and that consequently just get in the way. Because the marketing manager doesn’t need date information that is more detailed than the quarter level, the transaction dates are not only unnecessary, but they force the information down to a level of detail that increases its volume considerably.
- Highlighting the quarters, expense types, and expense amounts through the use of boldfacing is unnecessary. Everything but the transaction dates has been highlighted to make the dates appear less important, but the dates are totally unnecessary and therefore shouldn’t be included at all.
- If the dates were needed, their fluctuating number of digits would render them inefficient to read.
- Summary values at the required level of quarter and expense type are missing.
- The expense amounts are missing the comma used to group every three whole number digits, making them harder than necessary to read.
- Tying expense types and expenses closely together, if it were useful, could have been achieved through a better means of visually grouping this information. Even if a distinct font were appropriate, the font that was used in this table is not very legible.
- The heavy vertical rules lead the eyes to scan downward through the columns, yet horizontal scanning between the expense types and expenses is the primary way that this table should be read.
- Failing to repeat the quarter row header at the top of each new page could result in pages that have no row header at all, forcing readers to flip backward to previous pages to determine the quarter.
Addressing all the problems in the design, the manager instead designed a version shown below:
Create a table with two columns: 1) design problems (the nine points above), and 2) how the new table addresses/solves the design problem. Fill out the second column with your answers and submit the table in text (word/PDF) format.
Note: This question is adapted from “Excercise #3” in the “Practice in Table Design” section of the SMTN book.
T.7. Identify the features of a more effectively designed table
Imagine a business analyst is asked to assess the sales performance of your company’s full line of 10 products during the preceding 12 months. The table below provides the raw data. Dollars have been rounded to and expressed in thousands.
During her analysis, she discovered that the top two products account for more than 89% of total revenue and 95% of total profit. She believed it would be beneficial to either discontinue or sell off some of the worst-performing products. She decided to design a table that clearly communicates her findings to make the case.
To achieve these communication objectives, she designed the following table:
Identify at least five major features/highlights of this solution.
Note: This question is adapted from “Excercise #5” in the “Practice in Table Design” section of the SMTN book.
T.8. Improving your table
You may have created tables in the past for school, work, or personal reasons. Find a table you designed before taking this course and improve/redesign it using the table design practices you learned in this module. Submit both: the original table and the redesigned table. You should also mention the context and include a brief background of the table.
T.9. Improving a UMSL table (bring it to the class for discussion & evaluation )
Every year thousands of students and hundreds of faculty and staff create numerous tables at our university. The design of many of these tables can be improved. Find a table designed by someone at our university, mention its source, discuss its design limitations, and redesign it using the table design practices you learned in this module. Submit both: the original table and the redesigned table. You should also mention the context and include a brief background of the table.
Some sources:
- Graduate student theses at the Institutional Research Library
- Publications by UMSL researchers on Google Scholar (please verify that the researcher is an active UMSL employee)
Note: There will be a follow-up homework on this.