better visualization options for multi-select

[GoogleCodeExporter]

"we did some tests with forms with multi select fields and are now
wondering about how the stored information should be used, e.g. with
the "Visualize Tools" of ODK Aggregate 1.0.
The problem is that values being selected in a multi select are stored
as combined individual values and thus don't count for the single
values.

Example Code:
<label>Defoliation</label>
             <select ref="/SoilQualitySurvey/Defoliation">
               <label>Select</label>
                <item>
                   <label>Widespread</label>
                   <value>Widespread</value>
               </item>
               <item>
                   <label>None</label>
                   <value>None</value>
               </item>
           </select>

When we select "Widespread" and "None", the diagrams and Spreadsheets
process the data as "Widespread None" and not "Widespread" and "None".
(I would like to attach a Screenshot to make this situation/problem
clearer... I hope you understand what I want to say.)

Or do we make use of the multi-select in a wrong way?"
-- LETSGO CeLeKT

"This is a tricky data representation question.  We punted it in 0.9.x and 1.0 
because a standard solution won't make sense in all situations.

If you have a multi-select with 30 choices, would you want a spreadsheet to be 
generated with 30 column headings for this one multi-select, and a "X" under 
the columns with matching values?  What if there are 50 choices?   What if the 
number of choices is unlimited (this is possible with itemsets drawing their 
choices from an external database)? At some point, it makes more sense to 
produce a spreadsheet with just "N" columns for a given multi-select (1st 
choice, 2nd choice, ...), and show up to N choices for that multiselect (but 
which N do you show?).

This would all need additional layers of configuration over the simpler version 
available in 0.9.x and 1.0.

If you have your data in a MySQL or PostgreSQL database, you may want to look 
at Tableau or another data visualization package that can directly work off the 
native database tables holding your data."
-- Mitch

Original issue reported on code.google.com by yanokwa on 4 Nov 2011 at 4:44

[GoogleCodeExporter]

I attached a screenshot of a ODK Aggregate 1.0 Pie Chart.
In our specific use case the presentation of the multi-select data makes no 
sense, because multi-selected values count as own individual entries.

Hope that helps.

Original comment by letsgo.s...@gmail.com on 4 Nov 2011 at 8:05

Attachments:

• pie_multi_select.png

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Original comment by wbrune...@gmail.com on 4 Nov 2011 at 4:10

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Original comment by yanokwa on 26 May 2012 at 1:01