Dashboard Burnout, Fixing Bad Surveys and Facebook’s Latest Ad Problem

What’s New This Week?

Google Analytics Gets a Facelift, Part II
An update to the old adage: nothing in life is certain but death, taxes and Google constantly changing its products. On that note, here’s more about the looming changes to GA’s interface. I can’t weigh in on the update because it hasn’t rolled out to my account yet. (Hey, Google are you listening?)

So Tired of Dashboards
If you are feeling overwhelmed by dashboards, (Lots of numbers! Lots of charts!) you aren’t alone. This article contains good points to consider when building your next dashboard. Pro tip: answer the business question and don’t add unnecessary complexity.

Facebook’s Teen Problem
It’s the latest in a long line of Facebook ad PR disasters. This week, media reported on a leaked presentation from Facebook, which described the social platform’s ability to target vulnerable teens. By monitoring posts and photos, Facebook can determine when young people feel “stressed,” “defeated,”  “overwhelmed,” “anxious” and other great feelings.

Take My Data… Please
Just how willing are people to trade their data for convenience? Very willing, it seems. The author of this Quartz article ran an experiment in China: “customers were offered the option of accessing free wifi service in exchange for allowing the mall to monitor their shopping trajectories and send them personalized coupons.”  He initially expected only a small percentage of customers to accept the offer, but more than 75% opted in. As he puts it: “basically saying, ‘Take my data and give me an offer I can’t refuse.'”

And in other links…
A chief data officer talks about how she determines what data to track.  USA Today covers why some apps sell your data. And if your site has AMP content, you may have noticed an issue with your analytics. Here’s the story behind that.

Advice of the Week

Stop With the Leading Questions Already
If want to learn more about data science while walking your dog, check out the podcast Partially Derivative. I particularly love this episode about survey design. Great pointers (and a funny interview) about how write survey questions… so you can actually use the data you get.

Cool Visualization of the Week

And the Winners Are… 
Data expert Olga Tsubiks started “Data for Cause” to help nonprofits get more exposure for their cause… by turning their data into cool visualizations. Here’s the latest round of winners, which all use data from Global Forest Watch. Got a data set that you’d love to make visual, reach out.