Hi everyone,
I've been working on a dashboard for a systematic literature review. I'm pretty happy with how things are working at this point, but I'm having trouble with a selection display issue that I can't seem to figure out. The main function of this dashboard is to search a database of about 4,000 publications, some of which have been coded for things like "metric type" or "study design", and some of which have been subjected to text analysis to generate term/keywords in a word cloud. When no selections have been made from the data filter or word cloud the dashboard looks like this...
I'd like users to be able to subset records in two stages. First, using the local data filter and second using the word cloud. I think I actually have the selection part of this working, but selections are displayed differently depending on whether the local data filter or word cloud is used for selection. The way that selections are displayed using the word cloud makes the gradual narrowing of records that meet selection criteria difficult to see. I'd like the word cloud selections to display on the map the same way that selections using the local data filter affect the map display. I really like the five following behaviors associated with the local data filter: 1) search broadening (OR/any) options are available within levels of the same filter, 2) the search narrowing option (AND) is available across filters, 3) single or multiple selections can be made and/or unmade across all the filters using the control key, 4) when "show" is selected only the data points that meet filtering criteria are shown in the map (all other points disappear), and 5) when "include" is selected the word cloud updates each time changes are made to the local data filter. These combined functions do a great job mimicking a flexible boolean search, which works well for my user group. The image below shows the behavior of the map graphic and the word cloud when the local data filter has been used to subset records. I like this a lot. Notice how only a subset of the points from the image above are showing and how the word cloud has been updated to include only terms from the selected records.
I can't seem to get similar behavior from the map when I use word cloud terms for selection (right clicking on them and choosing select rows). I'd like to have a word cloud selection further reduce the number of dots on the map. This would be like having a marker selection behavior like the "show" option in the local data filter somehow associated with the word cloud selection. Instead, I have only been able to get word cloud selections to use marker selection modes that are available via the right click menu for Graph>Marker Selection Mode menu on the map graphic (which doesn't include a "show only" option). I currently have this set to "selected outlined." It you look closely at the image below (and you may have to squint), the subset of the records that have already been selected using the data filter THAT ALSO have the term "nest success" are outlined. This is great. If I select multiple terms in the word cloud the outlined records increase the same way an OR/any option would work within the levels of a data filter. This is excellent! So, it seems like my desired selection behavior is working where word cloud selections behave like another AND condition after data filter selections. Unfortunately, this result is just really hard to SEE give the marker selection modes available on the map. The "outline selected" marker selection mode makes it difficult to see the difference between included and unincluded dots on the map, especially since it is inconsistent with the refresh pattern that users experience when adding or removing criteria from the local data filter (which either increases or decreases the number of dots on the map).
All of this seems like it could be fixed very easily if there was some way to select terms in the Word Cloud that would initiate the "show" marker selection mode on top of the selections that have already been made via the local data filter. Does anyone have an idea of how to do this? I've attached my data table in case anyone wants to look at it. There is a single data table script to generate the dashboard and separate scripts to generate the map and the word cloud on their own. Thank you in advance for any solutions the community may be able to provide.
Casey Lott
Thanks @ms for the great suggestion. I followed your directions and changed the drawing mode to outlined. The unselected points don't disappear, but the contrast between selected (blue, outlined) and unselected (very faded) is pretty effective visually. It would be cool if there were something like an "unselected disappear entirely" option, but this is a great solution in the absence of such an option. Thanks again. Casey
Really cool dashboard!
Try if this improves the appearance of selections: In Preferences/Graphs set Marker Selection Mode to "Unselected faded" and Marker Selection Fade to 100%.
