This chart, I think, is the kind of stuff analytics teams ought to work on producing, instead of reports

The chart comes from a post I read last year from Gary Angel’s blog – SemAngel  More on Analytic Reporting Models

The chart seeks to incorporate a level of insight into the data it’s reporting on – and I find that a lot more helpful than a typical report:

This particular report is a traffic model. Its primary visualization is a 3 month trend of site visits. That simple visualization occupies the middle of the report. At the top report is the actual % traffic change month over month. Just below that is the real heart of the report. Under a heading of “Factors Driving Decrease” or “Factors Driving Increase” are the major elements that explain the reported change in site traffic. Along with each element is a bar chart indicating the percentage of the change for which this single factor appears to be responsible. At the bottom of the report are the factors that are driving change counter to the main trend.