Win with Advanced Business Analytics: Creating Business Value from Your Data

Chapter 6

Data Visualization

Presenting Information Clearly: The CONVINCE Framework

“The greatest value of a picture is when it forces us to notice what we never expected to see.”

—John W. Tukey

In Chapter 5, we discussed the need to have your team focus on data meaning and context, rather than on just the data itself, when addressing your critical business questions. In this chapter, we extend that notion and highlight the importance of creating high-impact data visualizations. Representing your data visually can be a powerful way to make your business analytic efforts high-impact and convey meaning with the least amount of effort on the part of your audience. In addition, some of us learn and comprehend things more rapidly when we have a visual aid. This is sure to be true for some of your nonanalytical business partners. Therefore, the importance of creating high-impact visual representations of your data becomes a key translation tool to bridge the gap between the data and your business audience.

What do we mean by data visualization? Really, data visualization can take the form of a simple graph to a complex infographic. Regardless, data visualization involves painting a visual picture that reflects the results of your data analysis. Vitaly Friedman describes data visualization this way:

The main goal of data visualization is to communicate information clearly and effectively through graphical means. It doesn’t mean that data visualization needs to look boring to be functional ...