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The Data Daily

The Science of Data Visualization

The Science of Data Visualization

Do Mathematical Summary Statistics really convey the full story?

There are terabytes of raw data moving around the world every minute, more than 90% of this data coming in the last decade, and everyone is busy trying to make some sense of all this data. A very important part of this process of understanding the data flow is visualization.

But why is it so important to visualize so much information when we have thousands of mathematical formulas to work with? The best way is to understand with an example.

From the data seen above we notice that all the points from the 4 set of co-ordinates have the exact same mean and standard deviation. Does this mean all the data points are representing a similar trend or pattern? Let us now plot this data onto a 2 dimensional graph and check. Follow the link below these images to know in-depth about the selected data.

Before we go into the specifics of Data Visualization and its advantages, let us take a moment and see the video provided in the link below. This is an experiment at Visual presentation of data done by Hans Rosling. This clip plots the health and wealth of 200 countries over 200 years.

Take some time to absorb the amount of data presented here in less than 4 minutes on multiple dimensions yet on a graph plot.

There are a lot of reasons why visual information is captured by the eyes and processed by the brain much faster than data in a text format. Visualization works from a human perspective because we respond to and process visual data better than any other type of data. In fact, the human brain processes images 60,000 times faster than text, and 90 percent of information transmitted to the brain is visual. Since we are visual by nature, we can use this skill to enhance data processing and organizational effectiveness.

Businesses deal with data that is highly complex, with multidimensional relationships across many different, massive data sets. These could include sales, site locations, demographics, roads, and promotions — each as their own set of complex data. The good news is that all of this data is geospatial and can be presented in visual ways. Data from various departments can be freed from their respective silos and create more rapid and accurate decision-making. In addition, visual information makes it easier to collaborate, and generate new ideas that impact organizational performance.

Human beings are visual creatures. As such, the time is right for organizations to implement new solutions for leveraging data visualization and unlock their true potential to meet mission and business goals. - Harris Eisenberg, Executive Vice President

Take the example of Hans Rosling’s presentation above; the research paper that explained this 4-minute video-length data was about 5 pages long containing 18 graphs and more than 2000 words. Would absorbing and understanding that thesis been better than watching this visual presentation?

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