Data visualization is a means of presenting information and data through graphical representation. This is done with the help of visual elements like graphs, charts, and diagrams. Visualization is a very effective way for people to understand patterns, outliers, and trends that are given by variables coming from different platforms.
In today’s world, data is very essential for businesses who want to stay in their respective industry. In today’s world, data processing should be lightning fast in order for the business to have a competitive edge from their opposition. With the massive amounts of data that are available from multiple platforms, an individual may find it difficult to interpret the data given to him in a matter of days. Even if he can make sense of what the data is all about in the long run, it will take lots of time, effort, and patience on his part.
If you are a business owner, you can try to imagine yourself owning three chains of restaurants. You want to know the sales of each restaurant and which food is often ordered by customers. You may browse through a lot of paperwork in order to extract the information, arrange them in a way where they can show you the sales of a particular month, and interpret the results. You can make things easier for yourself if you will use a type of data visualization for this kind of task.
Why Use Data Visualization
People’s eyes can easily interpret pictures and colors. If you are looking at a painting, you can immediately identify the color green from blue, as well as circles from triangles. Knowing this, presenting your data visually will keep the interest of someone looking at the report for long. They will be able to understand quickly what you are trying to say. This might not be possible if they are staring at massive amounts of numbers and figures that are encoded in a spreadsheet.
You have to know the types of data visualization that is best suited to the kind of business that you have. If you are wondering what are the available visualizations, then read on.
Common Types of Data Visualization
Time-Series Graphs
This kind of graph shows some measurements that are taken over time at regular intervals. If you are supposed to study a particular climate of a region in a year, this graph can be convenient for you. You can write the temperature at exactly 7:00 pm every night for a whole year. You can then get a good grasp of the overall temperature of the area annually through this graph. You will also be able to conduct a histogram report, get the median and the mean temperature, and do a lot of other statistical studies through the help of this visualization.
Bar Graphs
The graphs are generally used when you compare data using bars or pyramid charts. You can use the ranking visualization to know which year has the highest sales and which year has the least sales if you own a grocery store. An example of a ranking graph is the population pyramid where you can see the demography of a population and do a narrative based on it.
Parts to a Whole
This is shown by pie charts or treemaps. These graphs show an overall percentage of a certain product or service in the form of a pie or circle. The pie is commonly divided into parts to show a percentage of each service and how it impacts your overall business. Treemap is another way of showing data through parts to a whole. Using treemaps can be convenient if you have a lot of categories that you want to show. You can put a label on each category’s percentage inside several rectangles. If you are running a food business and your pasta only contributes about 5% of the overall sales, then you can draw a smaller rectangle to represent it. If the cakes have reached 50% of the overall sales, then a bigger rectangle that represents half of the whole will be the ideal example if you are doing a treemap.
Correlations
This is a kind of graph that uses the x and y-axis. Generally, the graphs will collect data based on the number of variables present. For example, if you want to determine the height and weight of children in your area, then scatter plots can be a good option for you. Scatter plot is a data visualization that shows a correlation if enough data is present. Even if you might notice that children who are taller will have lesser weights, in the long run, you will be able to notice that weight directly correlates to height.
Frequency Distribution
This is one of the most common statistical charts that gives future information based on a set of given continuous data distribution. You can read more about frequency distribution in this link here. It is important to be able to visualize the data in a specific company. However, it is much more important to be able to interpret and see future outcomes based on the previous results or records of a given variable. For example, if you want to know if you can reach $300 in sales for your jacket merchandise for the month of June alone, you can look at histograms or box plots that show the historical performance of the jackets on the previous months or years.
Relationships
This type of data visualization is a helpful way of determining relationships between companies. You can use this type for large networks. If you want to know how each variable is connected to each other, then a network diagram is your best choice. For example, if you are running an airline in North America, you can use a network diagram to show the pathways of flights in a given time.
Want to Know More?
If you want to know more strategies about how you can improve your company data, there are a lot of businesses that offer services for this. There are a lot of experts in the field of data visualization who can explain to you more about what you have to do in order to gain more sales, get more clients, and be a better company.
