Best Data Visualization Techniques for Your Business

Business analytics and data expertise are the key to the growth of any business these days. Knowledge of the most commonly used data visualization techniques is useful when sharing data-based insights with business heads. The article lists the most popular data visualization techniques along with their examples.

Data visualization helps to:

• Make data attractive and easy to understand
• Identify trends and outliers in a data set
• Tell a story that is inside the data
• Reinforce an opinion or argument
• Highlight important parts of a data set

Must Explore – Data Visualization Courses

When working with data, it is key to choose the right data visualization techniques. We have listed the most popular techniques.

Must Read – What is Data Visualization?

Pie Chart

They show the division of several elements and are very useful if the user reads the data. Pie charts show the parts of a whole. A pie chart works well when you want to compare substantially different proportions. Take a look at the following image. It represents the share of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere in percentage value.

Bar Graph

The function of a bar graph is to emphasize the comparison between elements, although the format does not lend itself to an understanding of big data.

Scatter Plot

Interesting if the goal is to show the relationship between different data points. Use numeric values ​​for both axes.

Line Chart

They are useful for showing trends, especially if they are rising. Shows the relationships of changes in the data over some time.

Bubble Chart

This is a variation of the scatter chart represented as bubbles. Depending on the size of these, the dimension of the data will be larger or smaller.

Treemap

Treemaps use rectangles to represent hierarchical data. They represent proportions and relationships between different levels of data.

The above chart represents the types of vehicles listed at an RTO.

Histogram

A histogram graphically represents the frequency distribution of variables in a data set. A histogram takes many data points, groups them into logical ranges, and represents them as bars. Taller bars show that more data is available in that range. 

Take an example of the sum of vehicles. A histogram groups the number of the sum of vehicles based on the count of vehicles as listed on the left. The left bar denotes a lesser count (123-743), and the right bar denotes a higher count (743-1363)

Must Read – Histogram vs. Bar Graph: What is the Difference

Waterfall Charts

A waterfall chart represents an increasing effect of sequentially introduced positive or negative values. Rather than just showing a starting value in one bar and an ending value in another, a waterfall chart disaggregates all of the unique elements contributing to that net change and visualizes them separately.

Box and Whisker Plot

A box and whisker plot is a graphical method of displaying variation in a data set. It provides additional detail about the data while allowing multiple data sets to be displayed in the same graph.

Stacked Bar Maps

Stacked bar charts can present smaller categories inside a larger data category. They also demonstrate the role of each smaller category in creating the larger one.

Heat Maps

Heat maps use the magnitude of a phenomenon as colour in two dimensions to represent data. They are perfect for showing patterns and density. 

Source – World Economic Forum

Word Clouds

They are word clouds or tags to discover trends.

Infographics

Data is used to share and disseminate information and generate discussion. It is usually used to generate traffic and links to a web page.

These are just a few examples of data visualization techniques; there are many more. Your choice of technique depends on the nature of the data and the insights you want to convey.