Reporting Tool

The reporting tool is used widely by the CBE research staff and partners to view survey results and generate standard charts for use in published reports and presentations. It provides and quick and easy way of viewing charts and determining the general opinions of respondents.

New functionality has been added to the system which allows the user to filter out respondents who answered questions in a certain manner. For example, if the researcher is interested in the effects of individual thermostats on thermal comfort satisfaction, she can filter out respondents who do not have control over a thermostat and then view the "thermal comfort satisfaction" chart to see how only those who do have control over a thermostat feel about the temperature in their workspace. The example below shows how a chart could changed after a filter is applied. Note that this illustration shows more than the actual reporting tool does, as the user would not see the two charts next to each other.

This feature has been well-received by the researchers who have used it, however it does not allow a side-by-side comparison of charts, which is essential to visual exploration. In order to achieve such a comparison, the user needs to either open two browser windows and apply a filter in one, or save the charts to disk and compare them later. Obviously, neither of these options are optimal. Also, filtering is a several step process, and users must go through this process each time they want to change the view or turn off the filter.