When a data puke is presented periodically, consumers of the puke learn to “fish” for insights in it.
I’ve been wondering why data pukes are so common. After all, they need significant effort on behalf of the consumer to understand what is happening, and to get any sort of insight from it. In contrast, a well-designed dashboard presents the information crisply and concisely.
In practical life, though, most business reports and dashboards I come across can at best be described as data pukes. There is data all over the place, and little insight to help the consumer to find what they’re looking for. In most cases, there is no customisation as well.
The thing with data pukes is that data pukes beget data pukes. The first time you come across a report or dashboard that is a data puke, and you have no choice but to consume it, you work hard to get your useful nuggets from it. The next time you come across the same data puke (most likely in the next edition of the report, or the next time you come across the dashboard), it takes less effort for you to get your insight. Soon enough, having been exposed to the data puke multiple times, you become an expert at getting insight out of it.
Your ability to sift through this particular data puke and make sense of it becomes your competitive advantage. And so you demand that the puker continue to puke out the data in the same manner. Even if they were to figure out that they can present it in a better way, you (and people like you) will have none of that, for that will then chip away at your competitive advantage.
And so the data puke continues.