This “sketchplanation” gives a name to a familiar problem.* Chihuahua is challenging to spell. If humans are entering dog breeds into a database or spreadsheet, chances are there are going to be spelling errors unless they can select from a list of breeds or there is another sort of data validation. It’s hard to extract meaning from data that is inaccurate. “Capitals, spaces, misspellings, hyphens, numbers stored as text, numbers entered as letters (I, O), accents, straight/curly apostrophes, dates out of order, languages, dialects, abbreviations, and more are all routes for misleading your analysis.” So make a plan to clean your dirty data and to keep it clean over time. Also, when visualizing data in programs like Tableau, you can group common misspellings into one new field. In this way, the misspelled entry will be automatically corrected in visualizations that use the new field. Also, Tableau Prep Builder comes with most subscriptions to Tableau and allows for easier data preparation including combining, shaping, and cleaning data for analysis within Tableau.
To see past data tips, click HERE.
*Chihuahua Syndrome” was coined by Edward Tufte.
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