Oracle Corporation • Data Visualization Tools team
Data Visualization Innovation
BACKGROUND
The Oracle ADF Data Visualization Tools (DVT) team creates components that development teams use to build interactive, data-rich cloud applications. During my tenure as Design Lead, I oversaw the creation of many innovative components and features.
MY ROLES
Interaction Designer (paired with a Visual Designer)
Usage Guideline Author
MY CONTRIBUTIONS
Prototype, design, evaluate, and author usage guidelines for interactive data visualization components
Provide design support for existing data visualization components & features
Hierarchy Viewer (patented)
The Human Capital Management (HCM) apps team wanted an interactive org chart capable of showing different types data from different perspectives.
I designed the solution — the 'Hierarchy Viewer' — and the entire project team was awarded a patent (US8161413B2).
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The Hierarchy Viewer displaying an org chart, its primary use case
Unique Capabilities
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Zooming in and out changes the information shown and its level of detail.
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Temporarily isolate a section of the hierarchy, reducing overwhelm and enabling more focus.
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Navigate through different types of information like a slideshow.
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'Zoom ranges' determine how information changes as a user zooms in and out
Some node interaction details
Navigation Panel elements
Options, options
As application building blocks, all data visualization components share common behaviors, but are flexible enough to handle many different use cases.
Layout options
Org chart data in 'Circle' layout
Hierarchy Viewer used for a financial use case
Thematic Map*
Oracle's Business Intelligence (BI) apps team needed a flexible, interactive component for displaying spatial data.
I designed the Thematic Map component with the same development team from the Hierarchy Viewer project (above), so the two components share many characteristics.
* Whereas a standard (reference) map shows place names, a thematic map displays data spatially, as with election results.
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Thematic Map of data for US states
Poster showcasing the Thematic Map, created for a team offsite meeting.
Data Drilling
Like Hierarchy Viewer, the Thematic Map also portrays a hierarchy, but one defined by landmasses and geopolitical regions.
Spatial hierarchies enable data drilling, whereby a user can navigate among a region's levels to view data at different levels of detail. Drilling and zooming can also be combined into a single, smooth animation.
Drilling between a region's state and county levels (click arrows to view)
Drilling combined with zoom-to-fit (click arrows to view)
Spatial hierarchies are defined by 'base maps' and their 'area layers'
More components and features
As Lead Data Visualization Designer, I designed and enhanced other components including a Pivot Table, Sparkchart (a simplified, condensed graph), and Gantt Chart.
In addition, I designed common features, such as keyboard interaction (for accessibility), viewport scrolling (example below), and data stamping ie, embedding one data visualization component inside another.
Line chart with 'viewport scrolling' area below
New Gantt Chart variants
Sparkcharts and Bar Charts 'stamped' into Pivot Tables