Currently to visualize the data, users have to write their own gadgets. If
a advanced user this is OK, but not for all. Specially, things like drill
downs need complicated planning.
I believe it is possible to start with data in tabular form, and write a
generic Gadget that let user configure and create his own data chart with
filters and drill downs.
Chart could look like following ( some of the controls can be hidden under
configure button)
Lets work though an example.
1) Key idea is that we load data to the Gadget as a table (always).
Following can be a example data.
*Country* *Year* *GDP* *Population* *LifeExpect* Sri Lanka 2004 20
19435000 73 Sri Lanka 2005 24 19644000 73 Sri Lanka 2006 28 19858000 73 Sri
Lanka 2007 32 20039000 73
2) When Gadget is loaded, it shows the data as a table. User can select and
add a data type and fields. Following are some example.
1. Line - two Numerical fields
2. Bar - one numerical, one categorical field
3. Scatter - two numerical fields
4. Map - Location field + categorical or numerical field
5. Graph - two categorical or string fields that provide links
3) Let user add more information to the chart using other fields in the
table
1. Add color (Categorical field) or shade (numerical field) to the plot
(e.g. Use different color for each country)
2. Point Size - Numerical field (e.g. Adjust the point size in the
scatter plot according to the population)
3. Label - any field
4) Then he can add filters based on a variable. Then the chart will have
sliders (for numerical data) and tick buttons (for categorical data). When
those sliders are changed they will change the chart.
5) Final step is define drill downs. Drill downs are done using two columns
in the table that has hierarchical relationships. (e.g. Country and State
fields, Year and month fields) . We need users to select two of those
fields and tell us about relationships and then we can code the support of
drill downs.
When above steps are done, user save configs and save it in the DataViz
store as a visualisation, so others can pull it and use it.
This will not cover all cases, but IMO it will cover 80% and also a very
good tool for demos etc.
Please comment
--Srinath
--
============================
Blog: http://srinathsview.blogspot.com twitter:@srinath_perera
Site: http://people.apache.org/~hemapani/
Photos: http://www.flickr.com/photos/hemapani/
Phone: 0772360902
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