Sankey Diagrams for Visualization

A reader reminded me that I had posted on the Sankey Diagram, a form of 'pie' chart with room for lots of relationships.    A kind of concept diagram too.    Even link to a blog with lots of examples.  Here is a re-post of that, with lots of new examples.

Also, I had forgotten this, Sankey Diagrams are available in Google Charts.

SANKEY DIAGRAMS
A Sankey diagram says more than 1000 pie charts

(Below one example, then lots more at the link) 

SAMPLES
EU Food Flows 2011

This comprehensive and well-structured Sankey diagram on food production, waste and consumption is featured in an article  ‘Quantification of food waste per product group along the food supply chain in the European Union: a mass flow analysis by Carla Caldeira et al. (published as open access article under CC BY license in: Resources Conservation and Recycling · June 2019). The paper “presents a high-level top-down approach to food waste accounting in the European Union.” ... " 

Interaction Insights in Alexa Skills

This piece was published last year, but gave me some interesting insight recently about usage of skills.

Gain Interaction Insights Using New Analytics in the ASK Developer Console   By BJ Haberkorn

Today we added interaction path analysis to the Analytics tab on the Alexa Skills Kit (ASK) Developer Console. Interaction path analysis shows aggregate skill usage patterns in a visual format, including which intents your customers use, in what order. This enables you to verify if customers are using the skill as expected, and to identify interactions where customers become blocked or commonly exit the skill. You can use insights gained from interaction path analysis to make your flow more natural, fix errors, and address unmet customer needs.


(Note the Use of Sankey Diagrams)

View Interaction Paths over Multiple Time Intervals
As shown in the example below, interaction path analysis provides a visual representation of the flow of users from the invocation of your skill to subsequent intents. In this example, most customers moved from LaunchRequest to Intent1. A smaller segment invoked Intent2 instead. Interaction path analysis shows both custom intents and built-in intents, such as

Sankey Diagrams, Generation and Code

I recently happened on a need and means to generate flow diagrams.  A useful way to portray flow in systems.  WP  includes links to generators and coding examples,  including Google Chart. Some good examples and generators

Watson Paths

Was reminded of Watson Path, and its use of Sankey Diagrams to communicate with medicine domain experts.  Nice idea, though the term for this kind of visualization is never mentioned.  Yes, that's a criticism.

 " ..... The projects known as “WatsonPaths” and “Watson EMR Assistant” will create technologies that can be used by Watson in the domain of medicine. .... 

With the WatsonPaths project, IBM scientists have trained the system to interact with medical domain experts in a way that’s more natural for them, enabling the user to more easily understand the structured and unstructured data sources the system consulted and the path it took in offering an option. The Watson EMR Assistant project aims to enable physicians to uncover key information from patients’ medical records, in order to help improve the quality and efficiency of care. .... " 

Sankey Diagrams in Google Charts

Notes on elements of advanced visualizations.  Sankey diagrams including multilevel forms, are available in Google Charts.   " ... A sankey diagram is a visualization used to depict a flow from one set of values to another. The things being connected are called nodes and the connections are called links. Sankeys are best used when you want to show a many-to-many mapping between two domains (e.g., universities and majors) or multiple paths through a set of stages (for instance, Google Analytics uses sankeys to show how traffic flows from pages to other pages on your web site). ...  "

Watson and Health Process Visualization Using Sankey Diagrams

On the topic of Watson + Visualization, Watson paths is a good example.  A research project with the Cleveland Clinic.  "  WatsonPaths is a new cognitive computing project that enables more natural interaction between physicians, data and electronic medical records. ... "   Video on Watson Paths.  Note the use of the method of Sankey Diagrams visualization in the demonstration.  See more on this visualization method at the link below.  More details at the IBM Research site.

Sankey Diagrams

I was reminded again yesterday of the Sankey Diagram.  Their use has been influenced by examples in Edward Tufte's graphic design books. The link points to a blog devoted to their use for representing complex data interaction of flows and representing progressive partitions of data.   Are they just expansions of the recently much reviled Pie chart?  Stephen Few seems to support Sankey use in his classic review of charting complexity.    See also Karakotsios's work on using them in Apps. I would like to see easier ways of including them in visualization.

Sankey Diagram Blog

A blog devoted to Sankey diagrams.  Discovered in my quest for ways to deliver these.  Many good examples.  " ... With this blog I would like to share with you my fascination for Sankey diagrams. My goal is to present to you Sankey diagrams I find on the net, and discuss them. I am mainly focusing on the graphical aspect, layout, methodological issues or shortcomings of diagrams. I do not intend to discuss the scientific content or the data behind them. ...   I am using Sankey Helper 2.1, STAN 1.1 and e!Sankey 3.0pro for drawing my Sankey diagrams. I have used test or demo versions of most of the Sankey diagram software tools available, like S.DRAW, or Sankey 3.1. Although I do find some tools better than others, I don’t intend to endorse any of them ... " 

New: Visual Footprint Resources App

Ken Karakotsios was the author of the remarkable SimLife genetic playground game.  He worked with us to build agent based simulation models that were used for years in the enterprise to understand product demand.  Now he has written an iPad App that can be used to understand resource usage and development.  I have had the pleasure to use it in Beta.  I particularly like its highly visual interaction and displays, which have given me ideas for visualization in my own design work.  See the Sankey diagram at right.  Likely also a good App for kids as it utilizes simulation, visualization and a timely subject. Follow along in his blog to understand its capabilities.  More examination of it will follow here.

" ... After three-plus years of research, designing, coding and testing, Footprint USA has been officially released!  

Footprint USA is an iPad app for adults and kids interested in learning more about using our planet's resources responsibly to build the future we really want. It combines tons of data with an interactive simulation to show the interrelationships among things like energy, food, land, water, and how we use our time and money.  It links the choices we make, individually and as a society, with the quality of life we get and the resulting impact on our planet. You can find it in the iTunes app store here.   You can also read more about it in my blog.

I am very grateful for all the support from my friends, family, and colleagues as you shared your ideas, time and patience to help make this a reality.  Thank you! ... " 

Sankey Diagrams for Balance Visualization

Though I had seen this form of visualization many times, I had never heard it called the Sankey Diagram.   Often used for energy and resource balances.  Recall Charles Minard's map of the diminishing soldiers in Napoleon's Russian campaign, made famous by Tufte.   It also embodies a specific form of storytelling.  More interesting description on its uses from an innovative colleague to soon follow here.  And more instructive examples of Sankey diagrams.  A list of Sankey diagram software.