When Visualization Gets Spooky...3 Bewitched Data Dashboards

Something wicked has descended on the GoodData offices. While the GoodData Family was getting prepared for the spooky season, we noticed something a bit odd. One of our older GoodData projects (suspiciously named Project B00) has been creating data dashboards all on its own. While it started by changing the colors of all our data visualizations to black and orange, it has recently created some very spooky additions to our dashboard, and its reports have been surprisingly...thematic.

Do we have a ghost in the office? Are our machines haunted by long deceased fragments of code from years past? Only you can decide, but let me try to make some sense of these “GhouledData” reports.

The Sugar Intake Optimization Chart

This surprising little devil spun up after we spilled Pixy Stix all over a stack of Macbook Airs. Even though we aren’t sure of its origin, it shows how much candy Americans consume at Halloween, by age. Notice the steep decline after the teen years.

The Candy-Booze Sentiment Analysis

We noticed this little report creep into our dashboard after our team debated the relative value of pumpkin-spiced drinks versus pumpkin-shaped Reese’s. No surpise here, the “alcohol” trendline keeps going up for the 21+ audience, as our project ghost loads data by the hour.

The Pumpkin Pie Chart

We were a little concerned when this jack o’lantern pie chart appeared on our dash...and one GoodData Family member swore it winked. This jack o’lantern pie shows that nobody likes to dispose of a well-carved pumpkin . Lastly, our friendly platform-ghost has said what we’re all thinking; On November 1, pumpkins become either rotting time bombs or fodder for pumpkin pie.

Hopefully we can pull an Exorcist on our GoodData project before the Halloween season, but if not, these data visualizations are a welcome reminder that well-designed dashboards can be engaging, informative and fun. Happy Halloween, and check out my post on dashboard design for some tricks and visualizations that won’t scare users away.