Best practices for data visualization and communicating insights effectively

Rijul Singh Malik
Geek Culture
Published in
5 min readFeb 21, 2023
Photo by Tezos on Unsplash

What is a Data Visualization?

Data visualization is an important tool for analyzing data and communicating insights. It is a way to transform large amount of data into a visual format, so that it can be easily interpreted by users. Data visualization is a relatively new movement in the world of business and data analysis. It is a way to make data easily accessible and understandable, which was not possible with static charts or tables. Data visualization is a powerful tool for businesses because it allows them to quickly get a high level view of the data, and then dive into the details if necessary.

Data Visualization is a form of presentation of information in graphic form. Data visualization helps to display the data in a meaningful manner and allows the data to be interpreted at a glance. The data visualisation is a process of converting data into visual representation of information. This means more than just putting a chart on a dashboard. Data visualization is an art and science of making use of data to communicate a message or an idea.

Data Visualization, Not Charts and Graphs

Data Visualization is an increasingly important topic in the modern business world. The need for companies to be able to visualize the data they collect is vital to the success of almost any business. The problem is that many people don’t truly understand how to do this effectively. Data Visualization — it’s not just charts and graphs If you’re looking to learn about data visualization, you’ve probably been searching for information on creating charts and graphs. While that may be a part of it, data visualization is a lot more than just creating charts and graphs. It’s about creating effective visuals that help people to make sense of data — whatever that may be. Effective visualization is about the user experience, about the information, and about the interpretation.

Quantitative vs. Qualitative Data Visualization

Do you know the difference between quantitative and qualitative data? If not, don’t worry, most people don’t. However, knowing the difference between the two is crucial to knowing how to most effectively visualize your data. Quantitative data is data that is easily measured and quantified. This data is usually in the form of numbers that can be added, subtracted, multiplied, and divided. Quantitative data is much easier to convert into visual representations. Qualitative data is a bit more difficult to visualize. Qualitative data is data that can’t be easily quantified. This data is usually in the form of words, symbols, or pictures. There are many ways to visualize qualitative data. The most common ways are through the use of charts, maps, and graphs. To be able to effectively visualize your data you must first be able to identify what kind of data you have. Once you have correctly identified your data, you must then choose the correct representation for your data — whether that be a bar graph, pie chart, or something else. Each kind of visualization has its place and will deliver different kinds of insights.

The choice between using quantitative or qualitative data visualization is often one that designers face. It is important to first understand what each type of data visualization can do for your business or marketing endeavors. The main difference between quantitative and qualitative data visualization is that one provides a numerical representation of data, while the other provides a visual representation of data. Quantitative data is typically represented in a line graph, pie chart, or bar graph. It allows for the user to count and measure data, which is helpful for things like sales figures, number of clients, or anything that can be measured in numbers. Quantitative data is also useful for seeing how one item relates to another. For instance, if you want to compare your sales figures to a previous month, a quantitative data visualization can be used to show the difference and the level of change. On the other hand, qualitative data visualizations are used to show that which cannot be counted. For example, qualitative data visualizations can show the tone of a statement, the strength of a relationship, or the popularity of an opinion. Typically, qualitative data visualizations are used in form of a heat map, tree map, or more recently, a word cloud.

Data Visualization Design Tips

Data visualization design tips and best practices: Visualizing data is a great way to communicate information effectively without having to rely on your audience reading or listening to your presentation. The key to effective data visualization is to ensure that your audience gets the right message. Sometimes this can be difficult because when you look at data you see your business, whereas other people see a bunch of numbers. Therefore, it’s important to design data visualization in a way that gives your audience the insight you would like them to have and not just a bunch of numbers that mean nothing to them. The following design tips will help your data visualization be effective: 1. Use color sparingly when it comes to data visualization. If you use too many colors it is distracting and takes away from your data. 2. Use shapes and images to help tell your story. Using shapes can help illustrate what data means. For example, you could use a circle to represent the number of sales, and a square to represent the number of purchases. 3. Use comparisons to help tell your story. Comparisons are a great way to help illustrate the differences in your data. For example, you could compare the average number of sales to the average number of purchases to see if your average sales are increasing. 4. Get your audience to interact with your data. Interactivity is a great way to help your audience understand the data better. For example, you could allow users to filter the data to see the average sales by year. 5. Avoid unnecessary charts

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Conclusion:

Make sure you are communicating the correct information, and more importantly, make sure the information you are communicating is the right information. Minds will be changed, people will be convinced, and decisions will be made because of data visualizations, so make sure that you are in fact, communicating the data, and not just a pretty picture.

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Rijul Singh Malik
Geek Culture

MS Data science @UC IRVINE | Data Scientist | Blogger | Content Creator | Avid Traveller