Mico Yuk - Data Visualization For Dummies

Data Visualization For Dummies

Published by: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030-5774, www.wiley.com

Copyright 2014 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey

Published simultaneously in Canada

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise, except as permitted under Sections 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without the prior written permission of the Publisher. Requests to the Publisher for permission should be addressed to the Permissions Department, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030, (201) 748-6011, fax (201) 748-6008, or online at http://www.wiley.com/go/permissions.

Trademarks: Wiley, For Dummies, the Dummies Man logo, Dummies.com, Making Everything Easier, and related trade dress are trademarks or registered trademarks of John Wiley & Sons, Inc. and may not be used without written permission. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. John Wiley & Sons, Inc. is not associated with any product or vendor mentioned in this book.

LIMIT OF LIABILITY/DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTY : THE PUBLISHER AND THE AUTHOR MAKE NO REPRESENTATIONS OR WARRANTIES WITH RESPECT TO THE ACCURACY OR COMPLETENESS OF THE CONTENTS OF THIS WORK AND SPECIFICALLY DISCLAIM ALL WARRANTIES, INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION WARRANTIES OF FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. NO WARRANTY MAY BE CREATED OR EXTENDED BY SALES OR PROMOTIONAL MATERIALS. THE ADVICE AND STRATEGIES CONTAINED HEREIN MAY NOT BE SUITABLE FOR EVERY SITUATION. THIS WORK IS SOLD WITH THE UNDERSTANDING THAT THE PUBLISHER IS NOT ENGAGED IN RENDERING LEGAL, ACCOUNTING, OR OTHER PROFESSIONAL SERVICES. IF PROFESSIONAL ASSISTANCE IS REQUIRED, THE SERVICES OF A COMPETENT PROFESSIONAL PERSON SHOULD BE SOUGHT. NEITHER THE PUBLISHER NOR THE AUTHOR SHALL BE LIABLE FOR DAMAGES ARISING HEREFROM. THE FACT THAT AN ORGANIZATION OR WEBSITE IS REFERRED TO IN THIS WORK AS A CITATION AND/OR A POTENTIAL SOURCE OF FURTHER INFORMATION DOES NOT MEAN THAT THE AUTHOR OR THE PUBLISHER ENDORSES THE INFORMATION THE ORGANIZATION OR WEBSITE MAY PROVIDE OR RECOMMENDATIONS IT MAY MAKE. FURTHER, READERS SHOULD BE AWARE THAT INTERNET WEBSITES LISTED IN THIS WORK MAY HAVE CHANGED OR DISAPPEARED BETWEEN WHEN THIS WORK WAS WRITTEN AND WHEN IT IS READ.

For general information on our other products and services, please contact our Customer Care Department within the U.S. at 877-762-2974, outside the U.S. at 317-572-3993, or fax 317-572-4002. For technical support, please visit www.wiley.com/techsupport .

Wiley publishes in a variety of print and electronic formats and by print-on-demand. Some material included with standard print versions of this book may not be included in e-books or in print-on-demand. If this book refers to media such as a CD or DVD that is not included in the version you purchased, you may download this material at http://booksupport.wiley.com . For more information about Wiley products, visit www.wiley.com .

Library of Congress Control Number: 2013949065

ISBN: 978-1-118-50289-1 (pbk); ISBN 978-1-118-50292-1 (ebk); ISBN 978-1-118-50293-8 (ebk)

Manufactured in the United States of America

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Chapter 1

In This Chapter

Delving into data visualization

Deploying data visualizations for your audience

Embracing the data visualization design process

If you're reading this book, you're probably interested in finding better ways to visualize your information. When you help people visualize the meaning of data, you add tremendous value to any organization. In this chapter, we look at what data visualization is and what it means to different groups.

When it comes to gaining valuable insight in a company setting, the use of data visualization is critical. Companies are desperate to view and learn from their Big Data. Data visualization, however, is a growing field with a critical shortage of true experts.

Big Data refers to the voluminous amounts of information that can be collected from social media data as well as internal company data. Analyzing and extracting insights from it is the goal.

After reading this book, you'll be able to help fill that role for your company, whether you're building your first data visualization or your hundredth one.

Here's a simple definition of data visualization: It's the study of how to represent data by using a visual or artistic approach rather than the traditional reporting method.

Two of the most popular types of data visualizations are dashboards and infographics, both of which use a combination of charts, text, and images to communicate the message of the data. The practice of transforming data into meaningful and useful information via some form of visualization or report is called Business Intelligence (BI).

Data visualizations (you can call them data viz for short) are widely used in companies of all sizes to communicate their data stories. This practice, known as BI, is a multibillion-dollar industry. It continues to grow exponentially as more companies seek ways to use their big data to gain valuable insight into past, current, and future events.

With the recent popularity of social media and mobile apps, the amount of data that's generated on a moment-to-moment basis is astounding. For this reason, many companies find that making sense of that data requires the use of some form of data visualization. It's virtually impossible to view 1 million rows of data and try to make sense of it!

Imagine going out to your garage every morning, jumping into your car, and then heading to work blindfolded. Chances are that you wouldn't make it past the driveway without having an accident. The same is true for a company that lacks insight into what its data is telling it. This lack of insight is dangerous, and its ramifications could be quite costly, both short- and long-term. Therefore, it's critical that companies use their data to gain insights about their performance.

This book focuses specifically on data visualizations that contain intelligent data (data that is actionable) and that provide some value to a company by enabling a person or group of people to make faster decisions based on that data.

Data visualizations are for everybody. All of us use them, whether or not we realize it. If you use apps on your smartphone, for example, chances are that you depend on data visualizations to make critical decisions on an almost daily basis. Do you ever use a weather app to determine how to dress for that day? If you open the app and see a cloud with lightning at the top of the app, you have a good idea that it's going to be a stormy, rainy day without having to read any data about temperature, barometric pressure, and humidity.