Presentation and Visualization Methods

Data visualization

Data visualization is the method of consolidating data into one collective, illustrative graphic. Traditionally, data visualization has been used for quantitative work (info graphics are a popular example) but ways to represent qualitative work have shown to be equally as powerful.

Below is a beautiful explanation on what is data visualization.

Visualization methods are considered to be very important for the users because it provides mental models of the information. Visualization techniques make huge and complex information intelligible. Information visualization is a visual user interface that provides insight of information to the user. The basic purpose of visualization is to create interactive visual representations of the information that exploit human’s perceptual and cognitive capabilities of problem solving. The goal of visualization is that the user can easily understand and interpret huge and complex set of information.

With availability of enough visualization techniques it can be very confusing to know what and when should be appropriate technique to use in order to convey maximum possible understanding. The basic purpose of visual representation is to efficiently interpret what is insight, as easy as possible. Different available visualization techniques are used for different situation which convey different level of understanding. This document is guide for the young researchers who wants to start work in visualization.

Below is a beautiful explanation on the value of data visualization.

Types Of Data Visualization

Basic Charts

The most recognizable and utilized form of data visualization is the basic chart. Line, bar, area and pie charts represent the most common types of this form.

Status Indicators

Status indicators are also a commonly used visualization to indicate the business condition of a particular measure or unit of data. These indicators can take on many forms, including gauges, traffic lights or symbols. Status indicators become even more effective when they incorporate contextual metrics, such as targets and thresholds, because they can provide quick feedback as to whether a specific measure is good or bad, high or low, below or above target. In addition to basic charts that visualize a set or sets of data, status indicators are also a commonly used visualization to indicate the business condition of a particular measure or unit of data. These indicators can take on many forms, including gauges, traffic lights or symbols. Status indicators become even more effective when they incorporate contextual metrics, such as targets and thresholds, because they can provide quick feedback as to whether a specific measure is good or bad, high or low, below or above target. 

Advanced Data Visualizations

More advanced examples of data visualization include scatter graphs, bubble charts, spark line charts, geographical maps, tree maps, Pareto charts, and many others. These more sophisticated visualizations are designed to display data in ways tailored to a specific function or industry.

The three business domains which I am considering, to demonstrate the utilization of date visualization are:

Healthcare Industry

Healthcare data tends to reside in multiple places. From different source systems, like EMRs or HR software, to different departments, like radiology or pharmacy. The data comes from all over the organization. Aggregating this data into a single, central system, such as an enterprise data warehouse (EDW), makes this data accessible and actionable. Healthcare data also occurs in different formats (e.g., text, numeric, paper, digital, pictures, videos, multimedia, etc.). Radiology uses images, old medical records exist in paper format, and today’s EMRs can hold hundreds of rows of textual and numerical data. Sometimes the same data exists in different systems and in different formats. Such is the case with claims data versus clinical data.
Any individual who has been a patient in hospital, will likely concur that the experience has opportunity to improve. Instrumentation and the best possible utilization of information and learning can have a genuine effect with regards to enhancing patient care.

Recommendation:

Utilizing a dashboard that joins wide assortment of diagrams, meters and display graphs, healthcare administrators can make informed short-term tactical decisions while gaining insight into how their decisions will affect various outcomes, staff groups, and finances.

Recommended Visualizations:

Pie Charts: Top insurance payers can be quickly analyzed using pie charts.

Bar Charts: The department utilization, including individual utilization levels of Doctors and Nurses can be compared using Bar charts.

Gauges: Patient wait time and lag by date and hour can be analyzed using gauges.

Electronic Commerce (E-commerce) Industry

Data visualization has equal importance in e-commerce as well. An online retail store generally collects data about its customers and where are they coming from i.e. platforms and websites. It is a good idea for the businesses to analyze its current customer base and the current competitors and compare their own business with others. All of this is made possible through a data visualization tools. Data visualization and analytics tools can help online business owners to make better business decisions and strategies to succeed and stay alive in the industry.

Recommendation:

Dashboards and e-commerce analytics give visibility for various division to see data that is significant to them. Distributors can use these tools to improve decision-making because they paint a big picture of the data. Seeing this information as a geo-location map, a bar graph and a line graph will be easier and more meaningful.

Recommended Visualizations:

Line Chart: To display trends over a period of time and also provide an easy way to compare online retailers in a particular year.

Bar Chart: To depict the region wise top performing stores in a state

Waterfall Chart: Helps in understanding the cumulative effect of sequentially introduced positive or negative values

Geo-location Map: For a visually appealing overview of sales by region.

Finance Industry

For the financial industry, I am mostly concentrating on the visualization in the banking industry. The finance industry deals with large amount of data every day and the processes involved are very complex. The financial services industry includes a wide variety of businesses such as credit bureaus, credit card companies, brokerage firms, and mortgage providers. Each has its own way of presenting information to its different users.

Recommendation:

A dashboard that displays financial metrics and sales metrics such as Margin by Month, Sales Distribution, Monthly Support Expenses, Monthly Revenue, etc.

Column charts, just like bar graphs, serve dashboard readers by helping them visualize categorical data and comparing it side by side. The main purpose of both the column and line chart remains the same, even when they are combined. Columns are best used to represent categorical data, while lines displays the distribution of data over time (trend).

Recommended Visualizations:

Gauges: To visually depict the range of expenses

Maps, Area charts: To visually depict the sales distribution across locations

Line charts: To analyze the Margin, Revenue and Expenses.

Conclusion

It is much easier to understand the data when it is presented in a visual format rather than in a table with columns and rows. But it is all the more important to choose the right visualization for any kind of analysis. To ensure this, it is always advised to understand your data first. Then ask several questions what are the variables depicting? What do the business users want to analyze? What is this analysis required? How will this analysis help them make informed decisions? What are the different ways this data can be visualized? What is the best way to present this data? I am sure after you have answers to all the above questions, you can make wonders in creating visualizations.

References:

http://bridgeable.com/the-importance-of-data-visualization/

http://www.ijcaonline.org/archives/volume34/number1/4061-5722

http://www.dashboardinsight.com/Article.aspx?id=4148

https://www.healthcatalyst.com/a-new-way-to-look-at-healthcare-data-models

http://ibmresearchnews.blogspot.com/2013/08/cultivating-healthier-hospitals.html

http://www.cmswire.com/cms/customer-experience/birst-to-aggressively-market-cloudbased-business-intelligence-offering-with-us-38m-funding-022188.php

http://www.dashboardinsight.com/dashboards/strategic/dundas-data-visualization-sonatica-dashboard.aspx