What is the Importance of Data Visualization?
Data visualization, used to understand a qualitative situation, provides an important toolkit for businesses to decide what to do next. With data visualization, you can explore the dataset in more detail and extract some information to create a dataset with the help of this method. Using the data visualization method, patterns, corrupted data, outliers and much more can be revealed.
If you have domain knowledge of data visualization, you can use charts that can be of greater benefit to you and your business than attribution of important metrics. With these charts, you can express and indicate key relationships in your projects and jobs.
As the Scrape.do team, in this article, we will tell you what data visualization is, the techniques of data visualization, and the importance, purpose, and benefits of data visualization in order to better understand your data.
What is Data Visualization?
In the data visualization technique, which can be defined as a graphical representation of information and data, visual elements such as charts, graphs, and maps are used. With data visualization, trends, preferences, trends, outliers, and patterns in the data can be seen and understood more clearly.
We have a lot of data these days, so data visualization tools have to be used. Thanks to data visualization tools and technologies, large amounts of data can be easily analyzed and data-based decisions can be made more easily. Since data visualization is often used to model complex events, weather models, medical conditions, and mathematical relationships are examples of areas where it is used.
Top 10 Data Visualization Techniques
Which data visualization technique you will use for the data you have depends on what your data will be used for and what type it will be. The 10 most popular data visualization techniques are pie charts, bar charts, histograms, Gantt charts, heat maps, box and whisker charts, waterfall charts, area charts, scatter charts, and pictogram charts. Let’s take a detailed look at these data visualization techniques.
1. Pie Chart
Used in a wide variety of applications, pie charts are among the most common and basic data visualization techniques, and are ideal for ratio comparison or part-to-whole comparisons. Also, pie charts are easier to read than other charts, so they should be studied by people who are unfamiliar with the information and need important inferences. It is not possible to make a detailed analysis because there is not enough data in this chart type.
2. Bar Chart
A bar chart, which can also be called a classic bar chart, is one of the easiest data visualization methods. In bar charts, on one axis of the graph, there are all the categories to be compared, and on the other axis, measured values for these categories are found. The main disadvantage of bar charts is that labeling and clarity can be a big problem if there are too many categories included in the chart. However, you can use bar charts for more complex datasets.
3. Histogram
Unlike bar charts, which show the distribution of data over a specified range or defined time, histograms help you identify where values are concentrated. You can also detect gaps and unusual valuesin data using histograms. This data visualization technique is used specifically to show the frequency of a particular event, for example, if you want to see how many clicks a website gets each day for a month, you can use histograms. Using this visualization technique, you can identify the days when your website is the most and least popular, and quite quickly.
4. Gantt Chart
You can make your project management more effective with Gantt charts that help you see the progress of the timeline and tasks in a project. In this data visualization technique, while the works to be done are found on the vertical axis, the time interval for those jobs is listed on the horizontal axis. By using Gantt charts to better manage time, you can deliver scheduled work faster and allow team members to better track projects. You can work on a regular basis by learning the Gantt charts that project management experts must know.
5. Heat Map
In heat maps, which is a highly colorful data visualization technique with color variations, colors are used to show the differences in the data. Thanks to heatmaps, the trends of the audience can be understood more quickly and planning can be done easily. However, a person needs a clear indicator to be able to study and successfully read and interpret a heatmap. There are many possible applications of this data visualization technique, as heatmaps can be used to monitor any sales or activity. For example, if you want to know in which hour range your store sells the most, you can use a heat map that shows the hours on the horizontal axis and the days on the vertical axis, all you need to do to read the data more clearly is coloring.
6. Box and Whiskers Graph
In the data visualization technique, which can be called box and whisker graph or simply box graph, a visual summary is provided by means of quadrants. To use this chart, a box is drawn from the first quarter to the third of the data set you have, and a line inside this box represents the median of the data. Using the lines, the minimum and maximum are reached, and all outliers are indicated by individual dots aligned with the lines. In this data visualization technique, it is easy to understand whether the data is symmetrical or skewed. The box and whisker plot also provides a visual summary of the data.
7. Waterfall Chart
The waterfall chart is generally used when there is a value that is affected by factors such as time and changes in line with these factors. The main purpose of waterfall charts is to clearly show the person viewing the chart how a specified value rises or falls over time. That’s why waterfall charts are often used to show expenses or earnings over time.
8. Area Chart
A different variation of the baseline chart, an area chart is intended to represent the total value of each data point, while the area under a line is shaded. Sometimes it is necessary to compare and examine several different data series on the same chart, in which case it is possible to use stacked area charts. Area charts show the changes in the quantity of one or more data over time, and this display is aimed to show how each data comes together to form a whole. part-to-whole comparisons can be shown more effectively in stacked area charts.
9. Scatter Chart
Another widely used technique for visually displaying data, a scatter chart has points drawn against the horizontal and vertical axis, with these points representing two different variables. Thanks to this data visualization technique, the existing relationship between the variables is shown and the trends and correlations in the data are determined. It is easier to identify trends when there are more data points, so it makes the most sense to use scatter sets when fairly large data sets are available.
10. Pictogram Chart
Pictogram charts present simple data in a more visual and engaging way. In this type of chart, symbols are used to visualize the data and each symbol represents a different value or category, making it very easy to understand the data. For example, if you want to represent how much a product sells with visuals, you can put an icon and write that this symbol represents 100 units. Since you do not need to know any language to understand pictogram graphics, you can avoid language and cultural differences with these graphics.
Why is Data Visualization Important?
Businesses can easily adapt to new trends thanks to data visualization, which helps businesses identify data trends easily and quickly that may pose a challenge. Data visualization is frequently used because the data is increasing day by day and it is very difficult to make sense of quintillion byte data.
So much so that every professional company uses data visualization techniques to understand data, because any type of data can determine whether a business will get better or worse. Project planners can also use data visualization to more clearly describe their plans. Here’s why it’s important to use data visualization:
You Can Analyze Data Better
By analyzing the reports, you can ensure that the people with whom you share the same job focus on the areas that need attention. By using visual media, it becomes easier to understand the key points required for the jobs. You can access better analytics and better business decisions with data visualization, which you can use to prepare a sales report or create a marketing strategy.
You Can Make Important Decisions More Quickly
We can say that people understand visualized data better than boring tables or reports. If the data is understood more quickly, it will be possible for the decision-makers to make decisions based on the data more quickly, so that the business can grow more quickly.
You Can Make Sense of Complex Data Easier
New patterns and errors in data can be easily understood with data visualization techniques that can be used so that people working in a company can understand large amounts of data. By understanding these patterns, users can learn the must-haves and the things they say absolutely must not be, and the growth of the company can be achieved by removing the areas that hinder progress.
What are the Benefits of Data Visualization Techniques?
When data visualization techniques are used, you can have significant benefits. We can list these important benefits as follows:
- When you use an effective data visualization, you interpret the data in Big Data more easily. If you think that there is a lack of data, you can detect this deficiency and you can easily grasp the data presented in visual formats.
- Thanks to data visualization, people in your company or any field can understand the data more quickly, thus increasing the speed of decision-making. Any business must be able to make quick decisions if it wants to grow better and easier. There are measures to be taken on time, and if these measures are delayed, significant losses may be encountered.
- Businesses need a big explanation for significant differences in trends and patterns, thanks to this explanation businesses can survive and survive. After all, a company needs to understand why it is losing and learn how to prevent this loss.
- Thanks to data visualization, possible errors, and inaccuracies in the data are determined quickly and incorrect data does not cause any errors.
- Companies that use data visualization techniques to access real-time information and to be more successful in management have more profit. With this data visualization, decision-makers strive to increase the efficiency of operations and increase the productivity of the company and its employees.
- Visuals and storytelling can be used to accurately convey a message to customers and people viewing the charts. With data visualization, the right messages can be conveyed to people.
- ·We can say that people who want to achieve their business goals can use data visualization to learn which direction they need to go. Quick analysis can be done and critical metrics can be understood instantly, as visual representations and graphical representations make the data easier to understand.
- With data visualization techniques, the latest trends can be discovered quickly and other companies and businesses can be easily avoided.
- Without data visualization, businesses would need more time to customize their reports and modify their dashboards. Employees also had to work harder to respond to temporary requests. Therefore, we can say that data visualization saves time.
Before using data visualization techniques, a detailed data collection process is required. When this is done manually, the data collection process can take a very long time. However, by using the web scraping tool that we have presented to you as Scrape.do, you can quickly obtain data and visualize the data you obtain so that your business will be in the foreground.
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