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  Design

  Pre-attentive processing for Dashboard design

  Pre-attentive processing, as the name suggests is the initial stage of processing information by our brain where certain characteristics are immediate... Show More

  Pre-attentive processing, as the name suggests is the initial stage of processing information by our brain where certain characteristics are immediately detected without focusing on an object.  This act is done quickly and effortlessly where the brain tries to recognize certain visual attributes that make things stand out or show groupings of similar objects.  Color, shapes, position, orientation, proximity, size and motion are some of the elements that can be easily detected pre-attentively by the human mind.  The examples below show how the brain immediately spots anomalies because of their attributes.

  

  While designing a dashboard we rely a lot on showing visual attributes of data for quick and easy detection so pre-attentive processing becomes an important aspect to consider.  The ability of the human mind to recognize and process information at light speed can be used advantageously in order to show data outliers and similarities in data in a dashboard.

  Applying visual attributes to a dashboard like a bright color or an icon that stands out from the rest of the information can justify the purpose of a dashboard making it easy for a user to gauge the situation at a glance.  As shown in the example below, color and icon is used as an attribute to highlight numbers that need attention.

  

  Color is a strong perceptive attribute but there are others that vary in intensity, like difference in shape is not as striking as contrasting colors. Depending on what information needs to be shown, whether qualitative or quantitative, various attributes can be applied.

  

  Visually encoding data for rapid perception can make information consumption in a dashboard extremely easy and convenient for a user. And since a dashboard is a summary or high-level information providing system, it is important to strive to be as visually informative as possible to target the pre-attentive senses in a user.

  So, the use of pre-attentive information processing techniques while designing dashboards can not only justify the purpose of the dashboard but also help in projecting information as needed.

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  By N/A 2014-01-17 / 03:41 PM

  10 14 11787
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  Design

  AGGR...

  The AGGR Function.....I thought I would start this blog post with a simple multiple choice question:Is AGGR.....a - Used in many QlikView applications... Show More

  The AGGR Function.....

  
  

  I thought I would start this blog post with a simple multiple choice question:

  Is AGGR.....

  a - Used in many QlikView applications to great effect
  b - Mis-used in many QlikView applications
  c - Used to return an answer without really knowing why you get the answer
  d - Not used at all because we're "not quite sure what is does"
  e - All of the above

  The answer in my opinion is "e - All of the above".

  When I came to write this post and indeed the technical brief, the hardest part of all was actually coming up with a really good, easy to understand description of AGGR, as it has to make sense to both "technical" and "not so technical" people. I finally settled on the one below...

  When it is used, the AGGR function produces a virtual table, with one expression and grouped by one or more dimensions. The contents / result of this virtual table can then be used / aggregated by a further outer aggregation function(s).

  With this definition in mind, I have produced a Technical Brief and application which can be found here and here. In this document I have tried to provide an overview of the function and provided some examples of where it can be used to great effect.

  So, when should you use AGGR? The answer is: Whenever you want to perform an aggregation in two steps. In the technical brief we show you some scenarios like.....

  • Largest average order value for each Salesperson for each Country, where average order value for each Salesperson is the first calculation and the largest in each Country is the second.
  • The Salesperson responsible for the largest average order value in each Country
  • How many Salespeople have average order values of less than $100 in each Country

  I would also be interested in any other creative and powerful uses of AGGR you may have.

  
  

  Thanks.

  ABY

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  By N/A 2013-03-08 / 12:09 AM

  19 22 41153
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  Design

  (un)originality

  Who you are is the product of all of the experiences you have had, and not had, throughout your lifetime. Nobody operates in complete isolation. Every... Show More

  Who you are is the product of all of the experiences you have had, and not had, throughout your lifetime. Nobody operates in complete isolation. Everyone is influenced by sources outside of themselves. We take those experiences and internalize them with our other memories in our own way but ultimately everything you come in contact with serves as material for the future you. So it stands to reason that new ideas & creativity are also the result of taking existing ideas and transforming them.

  People frequently talk about ideas/people as being "totally original," but the truth is that originality is rather unoriginal. People with seemingly totally new ideas are really just the result of taking existing concepts and bringing them together in new ways. Perhaps you can identify the original source material, perhaps you can not, but everyone is influenced by ideas outside of themselves and nobody creates something entirely new.

  The 4 part video series Everything is a Remix is a fantastic exploration of this in action. From music, to film, to mechanical invention everyone is influenced by the work of others.

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  By N/A 2013-12-27 / 05:19 PM

  6 1 3109
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  Design

  Left or Right side navigation?

  I have received a few emails from QlikView developers asking what the best practice is for placing list boxes.  There are two arguments that you may t... Show More

  I have received a few emails from QlikView developers asking what the best practice is for placing list boxes.  There are two arguments that you may think of right away.

  In information design, left-side, top-left to be precise, is always used for the most important information.  It is because as a human-nature that’s the space people pay attention to first.  So why should I waste the space for placing the navigation pane there?  I should place it on the right.

  Another argument is that people are used to use left navigation because most of the web sites have menus on the left.  Think about a shopping web site.  All departments, categories, genders, sizes… whatever you think of usually on the left hand side.  So why should I go against human’s habit and place it on the right-side?  People will get confused. 

  I can buy both arguments.  But then how about placing it at the top?  I have seen QlikView applications that have navigation pane at the top.  Is this the best of all?  Let’s think about this in QlikView usability, with an elimination method. 

  Right-pane We create a demo application for 1024px width so that it will fit nicely with any devices you may have including a projector.  But some users may have a wider screen or higher resolution screen.  If for some reason if I want to expand the line chart at the bottom to see more in detail or utilizing the space of my screen, I will need to overlap the navigation section with my chart by extending the width.  Then, when I want to make a selection in Expense Category, I need to either move the chart or resize it to do so.   If the navigation pane was on the left hand side, you could resize the width with no problem, and you still could make selections in Expense Category list box.  So the right-pane is out.

  Top-pane I have seen applications with list boxes at the top.  This may be a good idea because then the ‘body’ part can be used only for information display.  Is this the best of the all world?    Let’s think about it for a second.  We all know that you will get a request of adding more list boxes on the screen.   Eventually you will run out of the room towards the right, and you will consider adding a second row of list boxes.  Then will you shift everything down?  You are losing the important real-estate to display information by the navigation pane.   So that doesn’t work well.

  That being said, I personally think that having the left-side pane works the best in QlikView applications, and here are the benefits.

  Left-pane People are already used to look at the left side to navigate a web site.  So why not also for QlikView? Also remember that QlikView is also a web page. QlikView tabs as well as clear button navigation bar are at the top starting from the left.  So it is the best to keep the navigation elements on the left hand side so that when a user looks at the top left corner, all navigation related items can be seen easily.  It’s all about where your eyes start on the screen. If a user wants to expand the width of an object on a wide screen, there is no disturbance with other objects. The area to display the information is consistent.  Even if I add more list boxes, I do so within the left pane.  So there is no need to shift the information display area.

  Lastly, you may wonder why I have the timeline list box at the top.  This is my 11-year QlikView habit.  I believe it is the best to keep the timeline list boxes separated from other selection categories. 

  
  If you cannot give up the top-pane option or wish to have many list boxes on user’s figure tip, then you can use a trick.  Here is an example.  When you click on the ‘filter’ button, then there is a drop panel with list boxes.  I recommend you using this in dashboard where you need lots of real-estate for important information.  Or also you can use this together with the left-pane navigation.  In this case, create list boxes for the most frequently used fields on the left for easy navigation (accessibility), and you can create the hidden panel for additional list boxes. 

  Now it is up to you what method you will use in your QlikView application.  Will you go with a top, left, right or hidden pane?
  You can also download the technical paper on this topic here.

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  By sna 2013-04-26 / 12:02 AM

  14 9 14766
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  Design

  “Just make it look pretty!"

  There are some common misconceptions that surround the field of Visual Design. One of them is that visual design is just the act of making something l... Show More

  There are some common misconceptions that surround the field of Visual Design. One of them is that visual design is just the act of making something look pretty or to make something pop. However, Visual Design is more than that.

  While making something looks aesthetically pleasing is one of the important parts of Visual Design, it goes beyond that to effectively communicate to people what the product or the application is all about. Visual Design if not done well cannot help the user to answer basic questions like – What is this? How do I use it? Why should I care?

  These are some crucial questions that a design needs to answer in order for it to be user friendly and seamless.

  For instance, Figure 1 below shows information about Silicon Yogurt stores in the United States of America and a comparison between other brands. The information below is visually appealing but the problem is that I don’t get the story.

  Figure 1

  

  In Figure 1, the first set of information tells me about the total number of Silicon Yogurt stores and across how many malls, then my eyes go down to the average number of yogurt stores per state which is a high level information then a comparison is made between other brands and Silicon brand which again is something that talks about the detailed statistics and then it gives me information about other brands. All this information is delivered in bits and pieces and it is hard for someone to understand the point of this material as it is not organized in a proper high-level to low-level sequence.

  Whereas in Figure 2 below, all elements of the visual design are the same but the information is organized is in a way that tells a story and the info graphic makes more sense.

  Figure 2

  

  The Title introduces the topic, the map and piece of information goes hand in hand by giving a high level summary of Yogurt stores per State. Once a high level summary is given, my eyes then go to the details and a comparison is made side by side which is useful to understand instantly?

  The difference between Figure 1 and 2 was only about content organization which made a huge difference in creating a story to the article, something which is an important part of visual design.

  This is just one part but there are a number of other things that need to be thought about along with the look and feel of something.

  • Organizing information in an effective way
  • Looking at the design problem holistically so that everything works in conjunction with each other
  • Balancing the look and feel such that no element in the design pops up unless intentional
  • Choosing the right colors, fonts and other UI elements

  These are some considerations that need to be taken care of while working on the visual design of something. And then of course there is making everything look neat and pretty.

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  By N/A 2013-11-29 / 12:04 PM

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  Design

  Cyclic or Sequential?

    Calendar fields and time fields can be either cyclic or sequential. The sequential fields have values that are consecutive, never repeat themselves ... Show More

   

  Calendar fields and time fields can be either cyclic or sequential. The sequential fields have values that are consecutive, never repeat themselves and have an open range. Examples of sequential fields are

       Year                  [.., 2011, 2012, ..],
       YearMonth    [.., 2011-Dec, 2012-Jan, ..]                and
       Date                 [.., 2011-12-31, 2012-01-01, ..].

  This is in contrast to the cyclic fields that have a limited number of values in a closed range, where the values are repeated after a time. Examples of cyclic fields are

       Month                   [Jan..Dec],
       WeekDay             [Mon..Sun] and
       WeekNumber    [1..53].

  This may seem obvious. Why do I write a blog post about this?

  Because I think that we often are caught in the conventional. As QlikView developers, we tend to use the existing functions as they are, without questioning what we really want to show. However, we can create any fields we want. It’s all about how data is best visualized and how the user can best interact with data. Your role as a QlikView developer is to create a user interface that supports a good user experience and enables the user. How the field values are constructed is a very important part of the user experience.

  This post is about encouraging you to use your imagination to create customized calendar fields.

  First of all, the same field can be created in two versions: as a cyclic field and as a sequential field. Think of the difference between Month and YearMonth, for example. The first contains cyclic months, the second contains sequential months:

       Month(Date)                                                 as Month                      // Cyclic
       MonthName(Date)                                     as YearMonth             // Sequential
       Date(MonthStart(Date), 'YYYY-MM')    as YearMonth_Alt2  // Sequential

  

  The above is true for most calendar and time fields: they can be created in pairs – one cyclic and one sequential. For example

  Quarters:
       Dual('Q' & Ceil(Month(Date)/3), Ceil(Month(Date)/3)) as Quarter // Cyclic
       QuarterName(Date) as YearQuarter // Sequential

  ... or Week numbers:

       Week(Date) as WeekNumber // Cyclic
       Dual(WeekYear(Date) & '-W' & Week(Date), WeekStart(Date)) as YearWeek // Sequential

  ... or Hours:

       Hour(Date) as Hour // Cyclic
       Timestamp(Round(Date,1/24), 'MMM DD, hh:mm') as DateHour // Sequential

  

  Secondly, you can use the Dual function to create fields that are cyclic and sequential at the same time, i.e. they have a cyclic textual (display) value, but an underlying sequential numeric value. This means that the same cyclic value, e.g. ‘Q1’, will be shown several times in the sequence.

       Dual(Month(Date), MonthStart(Date)) as SeqMonth
       Dual('W' & Week(Date), WeekStart(Date)) as SeqWeek
       Dual('Q' & Ceil(Month(Date)/3), QuarterStart(Date)) as SeqQuarter

  Such fields are very useful in charts. The chart below uses such a field (SeqQuarter) as first dimension and Year as second dimension. This way the color coding and the Year legend are created automatically.

  

  Recommendations:

  • Create many fields in your master calendar. A few extra fields in the calendar table don’t cost very much – neither in terms of script execution time, nor in terms of memory usage.
  • Create both cyclic and sequential fields in your master calendar
  • Use cyclic fields in list boxes
  • If you have a chart with a single dimension, a sequential field is often preferable
  • If you have a chart with several dimensions, cyclic fields are often preferable

  HIC

   

  Further reading related to this topic:

  The Master Calendar

  Relative Calendar Fields

  Fiscal Year

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  By hic 2013-01-04 / 09:06 AM

  4 11 7703
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  Design

  QlikView 11.2 and Direct Discovery

  Yesterday we announced the beta version of QlikView 11.2. QlikView 11.2 is a new release of QlikView that will be available in December 2012. The main... Show More

  Yesterday we announced the beta version of QlikView 11.2. QlikView 11.2 is a new release of QlikView that will be available in December 2012. The main new capability of this release is QlikView Direct Discovery. We are very excited about this capability as it truly expands the potential use cases for Business Discovery, enabling business users to conduct associative analysis on big data.

  Today there are many QlikView customers that use QlikView to analyze terabytes of data. QlikView’s patented in-memory data engine compresses data by a factor of 10 allowing associative in-memory analysis on very large data sets. King.com is one of these customers analyzing billions of rows of online gaming data with QlikView on top of Hadoop system.

  Now with QlikView Direct Discovery, QlikView users can do Business Discovery on the external data sets without loading the data into QlikView in-memory data model. What’s really special here is that with this unique hybrid approach business users get the QlikView associative experience even with data that is not stored in memory. This is amazing!

  One thing I would like to emphasize is the real value of QlikView Direct Discovery is its hybrid approach. It allows users to seamlessly analyze data from multiple sources (with the in-memory data) within the same interface without any size limitations. The users can associatively make selections in any of the data sets (in-memory or Direct Discovery) and always see what is associated and not associated with the same meaningful QlikView colors: green, white, and gray.

  Another great advantage of QlikView Direct Discovery is the capability to query data for more up to date information in the use case scenarios where recency really matter.

  How does QlikView Direct Discovery work? QlikView determines which data resides in-memory and which data is direct discovery data by using special script syntax, “DIRECT SELECT”. This allows certain data elements dictated by the script syntax not to be loaded into the QlikView data model during the script reload process, but still be available for query purposes in QlikView objects in the user interface and to be combined for analysis with the QlikView in-memory dataset. The video provides a short introduction on how to set up direct discovery. I highly encourage you to read the technical addendum paper to understand the best practices and some of the limitations that exist with the initial release.

  I am personally very excited about this capability and cannot wait to get my hands dirty to try out different use case scenarios where the query results from big data sources can be leveraged with unique QlikView in-memory features!

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  By elif-tutuk 2012-11-08 / 08:09 AM

  17 8 15398
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  Design

  Extracting Data from a QlikView Application

  As QlikView Developers, we are often asked to supply the source data files for applications on the demo.qlik.com site. Since most applications are abl... Show More

  As QlikView Developers, we are often asked to supply the source data files for applications on the demo.qlik.com site. Since most applications are able to be downloaded locally, I figured I would let you in on a little secret. You can create the data files yourself and it is a fairly simple process. The QlikView scripting statement that will help you achieve your desired results is the STORE statement.

  QlikView help states that a QVD or a CSV file can be created by a store statement in the script. The statement will create an explicitly named QVD or CSV file. The statement can only export fields from one logical table. The text values are exported to the CSV file in UTF-8 format. A delimiter can be specified, see Load. The store statement to a CSV file does not support BIFF export.

  Examples:

  Store mytable into xyz.qvd (qvd);

  Store * from mytable into xyz.qvd;

  Store Name, RegNo from mytable into xyz.qvd;

  Store Name as a, RegNo as b from mytable into xyz.qvd;

  store mytable into myfile.txt (txt);

  store * from mytable into myfile.txt (txt);

  (The two first examples have identical function.)

  So let’s walk through the process.

  1.    Open a new QVW and binary load the original app.

  2.    Identify the table(s) that you would like to extract. (Table viewer).

  3.    In the script you will either have to enter a Store statement for every table that you would like to extract.

  

  Or you could use this snippet of script that will extract all tables from the original app

  

  4.    Reload the application.

  After the reload, the extracted files will be placed in the same folder as the reloaded QVW. Now go ahead and try it for yourself.

  Happy Qlikking!

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  By Charles_Bannon 2013-11-15 / 05:14 PM

  6 18 12170
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  Design

  Data Modelling: Clarity vs. Speed

  Now that the waves from last week’s post about Count(distinct …) have settled, it is time for me to draw some conclusions.   First, I must say that it... Show More

  Now that the waves from last week’s post about Count(distinct …) have settled, it is time for me to draw some conclusions.

   

  First, I must say that it is astonishing that no one – including myself – sooner openly questioned the assertion that Count(distinct) is single-threaded and slow. We have all had plenty of time to do so: It is true that Count(distinct) was single-threaded and slow in version 7.52, but it was fixed already for version 8 (I double-checked it), which was released in 2007.

   

  By the way, you can see what it looks like in 7.52 in the picture below. The two charts to the right are both finished, but the Count(distinct …) to the left is still calculating, using only one of the four cores (CPU usage = 25%). Hence, slow and single-threaded.

   

  

   

  Compare this with the corresponding screen dump from 11.20, where it is obvious from the progress bars that Count(distinct...) is faster than the alternative ways to calculate the same number.

   

  

   

  My first conclusion is that we need to sometimes challenge “the truth”. Because, in the software world, the truth changes. What was true yesterday is not necessarily true tomorrow. And if the map and the reality conflict, one must never forget that the map is only an incomplete model of the real world...

   

  Further, from a technical perspective, we can see that:

  1. Charts are calculated faster if the fields used for the aggregation reside in the largest table, in the fact table. This becomes especially true when the fact table is large.
  2. Charts are calculated slightly faster if also the dimension fields reside in the fact table.
  3. The above conclusions are valid only if there is an “external” dimension involved, i.e. that the chart needs to make the calculation linking over the fact table. A single number in a text box, or chart where the fact table isn't involved, will not be affected the same way.

   

  Does this mean that you should join everything together into one, single, de-normalized fact table? For fact tables with very many records, the answer is probably “Yes”. In such cases, you will most likely need to optimize for speed, and then you should probably put everything in one table.

   

  But when doing so, the app uses more RAM. Further, you lose clarity, as Jay Jakosky points out already in a comment of the previous blog.

   

  A normalized model usually has a simpler script, and is easier to understand for the person that has to maintain the application or develop it further. It is simpler to make modifications, to add tables or calculations, and to create correct formulae, if the data model and the script are conceptually simple. So for smaller data sets, where the chart response time already is acceptably low, I claim that you should not optimize for speed.

   

  Instead, you should optimize for clarity and maintainability, which means keeping things simple; i.e. keeping the data model normalized. See more in To Join or not to Join.

   

  Bottom line: Keep it as simple as possible, and don’t make unnecessary optimizations.

   

  "Premature optimization is the root of all evil."  - Donald Knuth

   

  HIC

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  By hic 2013-10-29 / 06:13 AM

  3 11 6576
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  Design

  The coffee analogy of UX design

  This analogy gives an example of what UX design could be. As you know, an analogy is not the complete truth. The personas (Eileen, Linda and Brandon) ... Show More

  This analogy gives an example of what UX design could be. As you know, an analogy is not the complete truth. The personas (Eileen, Linda and Brandon) used in this analogy are just examples and made up by me. Read more about personas and how we use them:

  The QlikView Journey

  Personas in UX Design

  So maybe you’ve heard of the Kano model which is a theory for user satisfaction..? If not, google it and you’ll find plenty of diagrams. Basically it says that there are some basic needs that our users expect us to meet, but it’s the “exciters” that will make our users truly delighted. The users may not have asked for such “exciters”, but once in their hands they love it.

  When Eileen, Linda and Brandon decide to have a cup of coffee, they probably have the same basic expectations: it should kind of taste like coffee and it should be hot. For Eileen, the taste might not be crucial, all she wants is caffeine and she wants it now. She is happy with instant coffee prepared in her own office. Linda has slightly higher demands; she drinks several cups a day by her desk. She is happy using the coffee machine near her cubicle and she’s perfectly fine with that as long as the machine works.

  Brandon wants his coffee to taste really good. He wants more than the regular coffee provided in the machines. He goes to the local coffee shop at lunch.

  Then one day, Eileen, Linda and Brandon find a new, top-of-the-line coffee maker in their office kitchenette. There is also a coffee grinder and beans. Someone has brewed them fresh coffee with such a fantastic taste that Eileen usually only enjoys at breakfast on Saturday mornings, that Linda did not even knew existed, and that Brandon now has access to in his office.

  For Eileen, it was such a delight that someone had prepared for her what she really wanted and with no extra time or hassle.

  For Linda, it was such a delight to discover what “real” coffee tastes like.

  And for Brandon, it was such a delight to be able to drink really good coffee together with his colleagues. Brandon now brings different kind of beans, so that everybody gets to try different roast flavors. After all, sharing is caring

  So how can this be translated into UX design? Well, first of all, whenever we're designing a QlikView app, a QlikView extension or a new generation of the QlikView platform, we need to accomplish a hygiene level that our users expect. Hygiene features refer to basic operations that the users must be able to do in order to complete their tasks, complying to standard interaction techniques, factors that facilitate learnability etc. If done well, the hygiene features won’t even be noticed because it just works. On the other hand, when poorly done, users will notice them because they cause frustration or dissatisfaction.

  But to offer our users a world class experience, we need to turn our innovation, passion and leading-edge technology into really useful, nifty solutions that will make our users go “wow”! In order to do this, we need to truly understand the driving forces and contexts of our users. So you could say that UX design is about being the users’ advocate, being someone who realizes that Eileen, Linda and Brandon needed a Moccamaster.

  

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  By N/A 2013-10-17 / 01:51 AM

  5 4 3714
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  Design

  Mental Models and Usability design

  I recently updated to iOS7….hmm...The new look and feel is certainly delightful, although, one particular thing really got me frustrated. While explor... Show More

  I recently updated to iOS7….hmm...The new look and feel is certainly delightful, although, one particular thing really got me frustrated. While exploring Apple’s new eye candy, I was trying to delete an email from my phone by the usual way, which is by swiping my thumb from left to right. Obviously, I was expecting a delete button to show up. I tried once, twice and several times, it just wouldn’t do anything and the most frustrating part was that it opened the email instead of deleting it. At this point, I gave up and went into my setting to see if something was turned off…and nothing! Finally I decided to do a web search and AHAA!....They actually switched the whole interaction paradigm of deleting an email from swiping from left to right to now swiping from right to left.

  

  This was the complete opposite of the model that I had carried in my mind for all these years. This was just a small example of a mismatch in the user’s mental model to the designer’s mental model which caused some degree of frustration and took some time and efforts in figuring out. In this instance, the learning curve was quite low, but what happens when there are so many things in an interface which throw you off because what you expect it to do, is not what it does in reality. This not only causes frustration but a repulsion effect and even the things that work well go un-noticed spoiling the whole experience.

  A designer’s goal should be to keep the learning curve as smooth as possible. This is when the concept of mental models comes into play. A mental model is a person’s perception and an understanding of how something works based on prior knowledge and experience, it is based on beliefs not facts. These mental models are very loose and keep evolving over time; they cannot be visualized and often times aren’t accurate.

  Today, we are constantly surrounded by different systems and interfaces that we have to keep adapting to. Although, these interfaces differ from one another, there are certain design standards that have evolved over time, which they all follow. People form a mental model of how these interfaces work. For example, one of the reasons why we place our Filters on the left side of the sheet in a QlikView application is because we are all used to the web where mostly the navigation panel is always on the left side. Leveraging these already formed mental models in our designs can be very useful in creating a seamless interaction pattern and creating a good user experience.

  However, sometimes, it becomes necessary to challenge the standards in order to keep up with the changing technological landscape. This needs a seamless transition of the already formed mental models to new and evolved paradigms.  As we move slowly into the phase of designing QlikView applications in the 'Next' version, these considerations will become vital to ensure a smooth transition. The below mentioned design considerations can be helpful in achieving this -

  • Providing subtle cues so that users don’t get lost
  • Frequently used functions to be easily accessible
  • Providing certain familiarity aspects in the new design which users can recognize easily
  • Providing flexibility
  • Always providing a feedback from the system to the user

  More information on this topic can be found at http://www.nngroup.com/articles/mental-models/.

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  By N/A 2013-10-11 / 01:34 PM

  4 7 4368
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  Design

  A short history of Data Visualization & BI

  Modern data visualization and business intelligence has its roots in the very ancient organization methods of information itself. One of the earliest ... Show More

  Modern data visualization and business intelligence has its roots in the very ancient organization methods of information itself. One of the earliest forms of organization was simply drawing lines in the dirt or sand. This gave way to using beans or stones moved around in grooves in the dirt/sand and eventually on stone or wooden boards. This became what we now know as the abacus between 2700–2300 BC with the Sumerians. The abacus was then adopted by cultures all around the Mediterranean. As written languages developed and matured there became written records of information regarding a variety of fields such as commerce, taxation, the sciences, etc. This information remained as written text however. There was no easy way to see trends or outliers in the data collected.

  Data visualization really took off in the 18th century when William Playfair, a Scottish engineer & political economist, brought the intellectual enthusiasm of the Enlightenment to data. Playfair went on to invent the line, bar, pie, and circle charts. Other notable visualizations followed such as Dr. John Snow's 1854 dot distribution map of cholera cases in London, Florence Nightingale's polar area diagram visualizing mortality rates in the field hospitals she managed during the Crimean war, and Charles Minard's 1869 flow map of Napoleon's failed Russian campaign of 1812.

  Fast forward to the 1950s when IBM researcher Hans Peter Luhn coined the term "business intelligence" in his 1958 paper A Business Intelligence System. His work laid the groundwork for modern information sciences. What we largely recognize as modern BI really developed over the years beginning in the 1960s right up through the 1980s. Statistician Francis Anscombe helped demonstrate the value of data visualization in his 1973 Anscombe's quartet which is a series of four datasets with nearly identical properties but look very different when visualized. He was making the point that relying solely on a table of values wasn't enough to fully understand the data. Visualizing the data was crucial to seeing trends and outliers.

  Our modern tools for Business Intelligence have never been more powerful. The challenge of taking action on your data though is largely the same today as it was thousands of years ago. Businesses and individuals are increasingly looking for ways to not only see their data but understand it in ways unimaginable to our ancestors drawing lines in the sand.

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  By N/A 2013-09-20 / 08:05 AM

  4 15 4851
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  Design

  4 tips to start working with QlikView - Developer edition

  My first blog post was about 4 tips to start working with QlikView, the title was right but it was incomplete in a way. I was referring to 4 tips for ... Show More

  My first blog post was about 4 tips to start working with QlikView, the title was right but it was incomplete in a way. I was referring to 4 tips for designers. Koen left a comment pointing that it would be nice to have a version for developers. I agreed, so I contacted Luis Cortizo one of our best consultants, to have a conversation about the most frequently asked questions that came up during the first days of QlikView training. Here are some tips:

  1. Forget everything you knew about data modeling.

  Ok, you don't need to forget everything, but you better be open minded to learn a new way to see and work with your data. There are some SQL modeling rules, constraints and hierarchies that you won't need anymore, QlikView is a lot easier than that. And yes, you will need to learn how to work with the script but trust me, this is about common sense rather than strong data base skills.

  If you are looking at the best way to create your data model, best practices will guide you to Star or Snowflake models. But remember, always start by understanding the business needs, then you will know what tables makes sense to have in your app and how you can join them. By doing that your data model will often look like a star or snowflake.

  2. Practice with your personal data.

  QlikView is probably one of the most comprehensive tools in the data visualization market. It could be used for creating corporate apps with billions of rows of data and thousands of users or it could be used to visualize your personal music library or your file system.

  When starting to create an app, frequently the hardest task will be to understand the business needs, particularly if you are in a complex corporate environment or if you are dealing with incomplete requirements.

  If you are a QlikView novice, my advice is to practice by loading some personal data and by trying to create something with meaning for you, that way you could practice with data modeling and visualization and you will learn how both are related.

  
  

  For example, I just moved to the US from Spain so lastly I use Skype to talk with family.  Understand that talking on the telephone is not one of my favorite things to do so, if during the day I have to make several calls, I try to keep the call duration as short as possible. Intuitively I think I should see an inverse correlation in my call history, in other words, the more calls per day the shorter average duration will be.

  To prove my intuition, I just downloaded several CSV files from the Skype website which contained call activity historical data for the last 8 months. Once the data was loaded into the QlikView app, I used a scatter chart to see if I could prove my theory.
  

  Because real data is (sometimes) ugly I had to transform the call duration from HH:MM:SS to seconds to normalize it and typically I want to work with dates in a human readable format rather than computer timestamps.
  

  The fact that I had my goal well defined - to show if there´s a correlation or not - helped me to identify what I had to have as an output from my model. In this example I needed to count the number of calls per day and this business requirement forced me to create a new field named "Calls". Later on using an expression like sum(Calls) I could obtain the number of calls per day (or any other dimension).
  

  Finally and after a few transformations I was able to produce the chart I was looking for:
  

  

  Looking at the chart, I can see that there is a non-strong (how close the points are to a straight line) inverse correlation between X and Y axis.  Note: remember that correlation does not imply causation. 

  Unfortunately, the data did not support my hypothesis. I did, however, learn how to show correlation and next time I will need to show how two variables are related I will always remember what I did with my personal data.

  3. Start simple.

  The QlikView approach to app development is based on quick iterations, small steps that put all together will let you build amazing apps. To start working in a new data model, you better start by loading a couple of tables and then create some list boxes with the fields you has just loaded. This will help you to experiment with QlikView Associative experience.

  Green, Gray and White color code will provide you with a great feedback. If everything is working fine, then is time to start with the second phase of your development including a new table or data source, remember that a QlikView app can contain data coming from multiple sources, inside and outside your organization.

  The more time you invest in a good data model the less you will spend on design, that´s the golden rule. And again having well-defined business goals will help you to collect, normalize or denormalize data to specifically respond to that business needs. This for sure will simplify the development process.

  4. Search, copy, reuse… and share.

  QlikView functions set is one of the most powerful data transformation sets in the market, it's important to get familiarized with it, every time you get stacked on how to achieve a complex calculation, use the search function in QlikView Help (F1).

  It’s also crucial to get involved in the QlikView Community - one of the most vibrant websites to discuss about data modelling and visualization - by searching, reading, asking and answering questions, but also by sharing… what makes unique our Community is the ability to share apps and get feedback from other business users.

  Enjoy Qliking!

  AMZ

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  By ArturoMuñoz 2013-07-12 / 12:01 PM

  1 4 5545
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  Design

  Content Organization for better Storytelling in Design

  In a presentation, or a seminar or just a conversation, the speaker starts presenting the topic by introducing the title of the topic, then gives a br... Show More

  In a presentation, or a seminar or just a conversation, the speaker starts presenting the topic by introducing the title of the topic, then gives a brief overview, the background and then gently flows into talking about the details of the topic and concludes with the summary or an inference.

  Similarly, when writing an article, one first starts with an abstract, an introduction, then writes the details of the topic in the body and ends by writing a summary or a conclusion.

  Order and organization of information from a reference point to the last detail, in sequence, is the most crucial part of effective and seamless communication and storytelling.

  Design, like writing, or a verbal presentation, or even a casual conversation is a medium of communication and a channel for storytelling. It follows the same principles of hierarchy and order as in any method of communication. Only when information is organized in a good hierarchical manner, the story is told most effectively.

  Most people are visual thinkers, chances of people understanding a set of images and text put together in a grid with no starting or an end point are very slim, instead, going through and comprehending information which is ordered in a top to bottom approach is much more meaningful.
  
  For instance, the design of a newspaper is a classic example of using hierarchy in the most effective way to help people read highlights and pick information they want to read.  Hierarchical patterns in design can not only aid comprehension but also enable quick scanning of information, guide the user through the story and improve usability. 

  As time becomes an increasingly valuable commodity, grabbing the user’s attention and retaining it has become the most important and the most challenging thing today. Designing information in a way that calls for the user’s attention and retains it is the key to a successful communication strategy and Hierarchy forms one of the most important ingredients for effective communication.

  In a QlikView application the D-A-R concept (Dashboard, analysis, report) is a great method to provide contextual hierarchy where the content is presented in a top down approach. This makes it easier for the user to grasp the data from start to finish and also enables them to pick out information that they intends to drill down to and analyze.
  
  However basic and overemphasized these principles may seem, the fact is that they always seem to work and give rise to good user experience. Research and usability tests prove that when a design layout adheres to the basic principles of design, the design becomes more user-friendly, simple and obvious. Hierarchy is one of the most important principles of basic design and should be applied to all designs from simple to complex.
  A technical brief can be found here which expands more on this topic.

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  By N/A 2013-07-05 / 01:01 PM

  1 1 2682
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  Design

  Handling many tabs in QlikView

  We sometimes suffer from trying to show as much information as possible in QlikView.  In order for us to categorize the information so the users can c... Show More

  We sometimes suffer from trying to show as much information as possible in QlikView.  In order for us to categorize the information so the users can consume it more easily and smoothly, the first option you may consider is using tabs. 

  Tabs are a great way to categorize the information for users; however, if you abuse the tab system in QlikView, users may get confused or miss some important information that is available for them.  This is why.

  •          When there are too many tabs, then QlikView wraps the tabs and creates multiple rows of tabs in QlikView Desktop.

  

  •          The point above is a different usability in AJAX client when many tabs exist.  QlikView creates buttons to navigate the rest of the tabs that are hidden, just like MS Excel. As you can imagine, this can be a risk of users missing some information.

  

  Have you seen an application like this?  Well, I have.  Yes, in a real life use case.

  

  In this extreme case, rows of tabs can be as many as the example above.  This is an example with 1024x768 screen resolution.  As you can see, we are losing the real estate for information display for the tabs.  It is about 1/3 of the entire real state for tabs.

  In order to avoid this tab nightmare, you have a few options to overcome this situation.  First, think about the hierarchy of your information categories.  Then, consider using 1) a container object, 2) sub-tabular system, 3) a multi-box or 4) combination of these options. 

  This is one example of using the Option2: sub tabular-system.

  

  If you are curious to know more about this topic, you can see the tech brief here.  More example snapshots and how each option works are documented in detail.

  I hope you have a better understanding on how to deal with many tabs in QlikView.

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  By sna 2013-06-21 / 04:42 PM

  7 5 9158
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  Design

  Usability Recommendations

  Usability engineers & researchers are crucial parts of User Experience. While not as "glamorous" as designers they bring evidence to the world of desi... Show More

  Usability engineers & researchers are crucial parts of User Experience. While not as "glamorous" as designers they bring evidence to the world of design. Through observation of heuristic tests they offer empirical evidence that a design is working, failing, what users like, what users aren't finding, what users are doing that they don't even realize they are doing it, etc. Usability is the closest thing design has to being a science.

   

  The attached technical paper goes through a variety of topics with usability in mind and makes recommendations. It links out to studies and research already done supporting best practices.

  The basic findings and recommendations in this document are that:

  • People don’t read everything online, they skim

  • Paragraph width impacts comprehension

  • Scrolling is good

  • Monitor Resolution: design for 1024x768

  • Ipads: design for 1024x768 and allow scrolling

  • Icons don’t necessarily help usability

  • Filters should be on the left

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  By N/A 2013-06-07 / 03:28 PM

  4 1 4474
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  Design

  Creating a Trial Balance Sheet in QlikView

  When using QlikView, sometimes we are faced with challenges such as how do we transform an Excel spreadsheet that looks like the image below into a tr... Show More

  When using QlikView, sometimes we are faced with challenges such as how do we transform an Excel spreadsheet that looks like the image below into a trial balance chart that allows us to see the monthly activity for each company and account.

  

  Well using various functions and features of QlikView such as:

  •          CrossTable Load of Excel spreadsheet

  •          IsNull() function

  •          RowNo() function

  •          Peek() function

  •          Date functions

  •          Preceding load

  We can create a trial balance sheet that looks like this:

  

  Creating this chart involves loading the Excel spreadsheet into QlikView in a format that works best for us using a CrossTable load.  After sorting this data by Company Number, Account Number and Month Year, we are ready to create the Opening and Closing fields that we will need for the trial balance chart.  Using the RowNo() and Peek() functions, we are able to create the opening and closing balance fields for each account number on a monthly basis allowing the user to see what the activity was like during any given month.  Here is a snippet of what that script looks like:

  

  You can view the step by step details of how the trial balance chart was created in this technical brief.

  Jennell

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  By Jennell_Yorkman 2013-05-24 / 11:03 AM

  1 4 7090
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  Design

  A Historical Odyssey: QlikView 7, QVD files and the Aggr() function

  For QlikView 7 we developed a number of features that would enable developers to make even more advanced applications. One such feature was the Buffer... Show More

  For QlikView 7 we developed a number of features that would enable developers to make even more advanced applications. One such feature was the Buffer prefix – a prefix that you could put in front of a Load or a SELECT that would store the data on the local machine and automatically use the local data when appropriate. With it, you could e.g. load data from a slow ODBC connection just once a day and for other script runs use the buffer.

   

  The buffered data needed to be compact and something that QlikView could load fast. So, the QVD file was invented to solve this need. Today, hardly anyone uses the Buffer prefix, but QVD files created with the Store command are often used.

   

  

   

  Another new feature was the Aggr() function. Already for QlikView 4 we had a solution for having an aggregation as dimension. Well, solution is perhaps not the right word… There was a kludgy, hidden feature with which you could use a count of a field as dimension. Internally it was called the Doctors’ Special. We solved a customer’s problem at the time, but we were not satisfied: we instead wanted a general, good solution for nested aggregations.

   

  Six years later – after much thinking – Håkan (the Inventor) came up with the Aggr() function. It is a general function that can be used both as dimension and as measure. It can be nested and it can internally use any aggregation. In other words: it is a general function for nested aggregations. A by-product was the calculated dimension, which was necessary in order to use the Aggr() as dimension.

   

  The Intel Itanium processor was first released in 2001, but its sales had still not picked up when QlikView 7 was released four years later in 2005. Instead, a new kid appeared on the block: The AMD X64 architecture. The X64 turned out to be both cheaper and faster than the Itanium, and as a consequence it sold better.

   

  We already had an Itanium edition of QlikView and we realized that we also needed an X64 edition. Porting the code was straightforward and QlikView 7 was now shipped in three editions: X86, IA64 and X64.

   

  QlikView 7 also brought the calendar object, the block chart, the box plot, the expression overview, the variable overview, the alerts and the reports.

   

  As a curiosity, I can also mention that QlikView 7 was the first version with scroll bars for the sheet. None of the previous versions had had this. We had always had the opinion that scroll bars would steal screen space and not add any relevant functionality. Instead we had a zoom function so that you could fit the work area to the screen. But - it’s never too late to change one’s mind…

   

  HIC

   

  Further reading on the Qlik history:

  A Historical Odyssey: QlikView 6 and Multi-threading

  A Historical Odyssey: QlikView 8, Ajax and Set Analysis

  A Historical Odyssey: The Doctors’ Special

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  By hic 2013-05-07 / 02:16 AM

  11 6 7350
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  Design

  Extending QlikView Expressor with the New Extensions SDK

  Last month QlikTech released QlikView Expressor 3.9 which introduced some key features that not only strengthen data governance practices within a Qli... Show More

  Last month QlikTech released QlikView Expressor 3.9 which introduced some key features that not only strengthen data governance practices within a QlikView deployment, but also enable developers to extend QlikView Expressor functionality.

  Enhancements include:

  • Conformance Mapping - enables consistent naming of attributes representing a given data element. It reduces the proliferation of unnecessary variations that can cause inconsistent results in data processing.  Conformance Mapping makes it simple to unify the attributes mapped to fields in a Schema.

  • Metadata Analysis Search and Usage -  helps locate QlikView Expressor artifacts (dataflows, schemas, types, connections, attributes, fields, etc.) within workspaces, projects and libraries that are used to manage and prepare data for QlikView and other data targets.

  • The Extension SDK - enables a set of toolkits and wizards that provide a framework with common functions for developing Extensions for QlikView Expressor.

  
  In this article I will briefly cover the QlikView Expressor Extension SDK and provide a supporting reference with examples that demonstrate how it can be used. (You can learn more about these features in this Technical Brief.)

  The Extension SDK

  Typically, software packages provide a method to extend their functionality using a development kit or API. This allows a developer to build in new capabilities that otherwise would not be available in the out-of-the-box software. The QlikView Expressor Extension SDK enables a set of toolkits and wizards that provide a framework with common functions for developing extensions for QlikView Expressor. With extensions, developers can provide clients with tools to integrate data from specialized sources and perform specialized transformations on data. An extension’s operators, connections and schema integrate into the QlikView Expressor Desktop interface and seamlessly work in conjunction with other standard, enterprise artifacts and operators.

  The Extensions SDK provides a set of compilation, utility, and data type conversion functions using built-in Datascript Modules (DSM). DSMs are the standard QlikView Expressor scripting module for Datascript,  based on the Lua open-source scripting language. Extensions built on these common functions add functionality to QlikView Expressor Desktop to support custom data sources and specialized transformations.

  

  Figure 1 - The Extension Builder

  What is a QlikView Expressor Extension?

  A QlikView Expressor Extension is a plug-in (or add-on) that adds new Operators and Metadata artifacts to those already included in the core QlikView Expressor product. Extensions can provide read,write,transform and work-flow-like operations  that are not available with the standard operators and artifact types. Once developed they can be easily packaged and distributed with the QlikView Expressor Extensions Manager.

  

  Figure 2 - Custom Operators for reading files from a directory or FTP

  The Extension SDK Tutorial

  Want to give it a try? Check out this tutorial and sample project to learn how extensions are built using QlikView Expressor.

  NOTE: Please make sure you have QlikView Expressor 3.9.1 installed.

  Samples available in the project include:

  • Reading Fixed Width Files
  • Reading delimited files from a directory
  • Reading a data file via FTP
  • Encrypting and Decrypting Data with a custom transform

  Regards,

  Michael Tarallo
  Senior Product Marketing Manager
  QlikView and QlikView Expressor
  @mtarallo

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  By Michael_Tarallo 2013-05-14 / 07:04 AM

  0 1 4078
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  Design

  Why is the question "Why" important in a design process

  When we start working on a new project, the customer requirements form the guiding rails for us to begin the process of designing. As we start brainst... Show More

  When we start working on a new project, the customer requirements form the guiding rails for us to begin the process of designing. As we start brainstorming and throwing out ideas, we begin to fill the empty spaces with uncertain experiments. We then start making tiny decision which we stitch together part by part in trying to complete the big picture.

  Initially to get started with drawing an outline of the project, we naturally tend to ask ourselves the basic questions of why, what, where, how. As the project progresses, we come across unforeseen hurdles, feedback, opinions and try to work our way through it to achieve the big goal.  However, in the process of doing so, there are very strong chances of digressing from the main purpose of the project. In trying to put the small pieces together, and focusing on how to make it happen, we sometimes tend to lose the purpose of why we are doing what we are doing.  This is when the question “Why” always comes handy to validate our work.

  A design can never be a solution if it doesn’t fulfill the underlying purpose of its existence. Asking the question “Why” each time we complete our little milestones, that we set for ourselves, can do wonders to the final solution.

  In the book called “The Shape of Design”, Frank Chimero points out - “Our mistake was the same as that of the creative person who places too much focus on How to create her work, while ignoring Why she is creating it. Questions about How to do things improves craft and elevates form, but asking Why unearths a purpose and develops a point of view. We need to do more than hit the right note. The creative process, in essence, is an individual in dialogue with themselves and the work. Why is usually neglected, because How is more easily framed.”

  The process of design is most successful when it is an iterative process rather than a linear one. Asking the question “Why” at every stage to validate your work can not only help in creating a strong argument for your work but also help in delivering a legitimate story. So, a reality check by asking the question “why” at every stage of the process can help in creating the solution that one set out to provide in the first place.

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  By N/A 2013-05-10 / 09:21 AM

  1 4 2841