Why visualise data?

Data visualisation is the process of communicating information through charts, diagrams, dashboards, schematics, and graphics in a human-readable format. The video above explored some key examples and comparisons that demonstrate the importance of data visualisations. Data visualisation is used for data exploration and discovery, and communicating results to business stakeholders.

Earlier in Week 1, we learned that exploratory data analysis (EDA) forms a critical part of the data analytics process. Using data visualisation as a part of the EDA process will help data scientists to see anomalies in the data, relationships between variables in the data, and missing or incorrect data. Data scientists have a tendency to miss these aspects during regular statistical analysis.

In summary, data visualisation facilitates meaningful and effective data conversations. Therefore, as a skill, data visualisation is a ‘must-have’ for a data science professional.

Reflect

After watching the video, think of an incident in real life when you were misguided or misled because the information was not presented visually. Share your thoughts and experience in the comments.

So far, we have engaged with the importance of data visualisation. Next, let’s learn about the different tools available for data visualisation: charts and dashboards.