The Importance of Data Visualization

What is Data Visualization?

Data visualization changes the way we look at and analyse information using visual components such as graphs, charts and maps. By injecting organic data into lively, graphical presentations, we can better understand and access the trends, patterns and anomalies in any given data. Basically, it makes our life easier.

Why use Data Visualization?

Let’s face the facts: the marketing world can be a tedious place, often frustratingly so. The constant influx of information, the bombardment of facts and figures and the infinite inevitability of change is undeniably overwhelming. If left unmanaged, this can lead to a general lack of productivity: those hair-pulling moments where your brain just doesn’t seem to want to cooperate.

The truth is, organic information in its purest form is dull and uninspired; we’ve all had times when we’ve stared at a black and white spreadsheet for hours without really seeing it. Dr. Lynell Burmark, an education consultant who writes and speaks about visual literacy says that: “…unless our words, concepts, ideas are hooked onto an image, they will go in one ear, sail through the brain, and go out the other ear. Words are processed by our short-term memory where we can only retain about seven bits of information (plus or minus 2) […]. Images, on the other hand, go directly into long-term memory where they are indelibly etched.”

In today’s culture, visual information is pretty prominent — it encompasses the media, entertainment and business spheres. Because of this, our eyes are trained to fixate on and respond to patterns, colours and shapes. In fact, 90% of data transmitted to the brain is visual and 65% of the population are visual learners. By employing these visual elements, data visualisation is able to capture the eye and spark interest in the viewer; it keeps us anchored to the integral message of the data and helps us to easily internalise information. By curating data into an easily understandable format, we are roped into an emotionally engaging, colourful storyline of our data and spotting trends becomes effortless, effective and more efficient. Indeed, almost 40% of learners find it easier to respond to visual information than simply text alone, and many find that visuals stimulate a reaction that is both faster and more powerful than words might. At heart, we are all just little kids who prefer the illustrations over the actual story.

Examples of Data Visualization

Now, your immediate instinct when thinking of data visualization might be to imagine some simple bar graphs and line graphs and, if you’re hungry, pie charts. Although these are definitely important to the foundational components of data visualization — and are common baselines for many infographics — there is a wider selection of visualization methods out there. Simple graphs and charts are certainly useful, but tend to be less interesting than some other, more inventive methods. Don’t feel like data visualization has to work only one way; there are many opportunities to just have fun with it.

General types of data visualization:

• Tables
• Charts
• Graphs
• Infographics
• Dashboards
• Maps

More specific methods might include:

• Histogram
• Gantt Chart
• Heat Map
• Box and Whisker Plot
• Waterfall Chart
• Area Chart
• Scatter Plot
• Pictogram Chart
• Timeline
• Highlight Table
• Bullet Graph
• Choropleth Map
• Word Cloud
• Network Diagram
• Correlation Matrices
• Bubble cloud
• Cartogram
• Matrix
• Radial tree
• Timeline
• Wedge stack graph
• Word cloud
• Circle view
• Box – and – whisker plots

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