Data Visualization Types: Enhancing Business Decisions
Businesses apply data visualization types to understand the ongoing trends and their progress in the market, enhancing their decisions. In this post, we summarize the kinds of types of Data Visualization and how you can apply them to your research, presentations, and business.
When a child begins to learn ABCs, an Apple is shown with the Alphabet ‘A’ to understand and associate a sound with it for effective learning. Data visualization is similar to this case in point. It is the representation of data through designs and images such as animations, graphs, infographics, and timelines to receive and understand the data. This visualization helps you analyze a given information to make better decisions and communicate.
This might make you think it’s a new concept and that you’re learning about it now. You’ll be relieved to know that you have been applying this concept since your school and college days. Data visualization is one of the most vital tools of communication. There is no industry or organization today that does not use data visualization due to its prevalence in technical advancement.
Table of Contents
- What are Data Visualization Types?
- Types of Data Visualization
- How Types of Data Visualization Impact Business Decisions?
- Conclusion
What are Data Visualization Types?
Data visualization types are tools that help businesses research, assess, and present insights regarding their growth and performances, ongoing trends, and business patterns in the market. These data sets are large in number, and organizing these data in an understandable order accurately requires calculation and design. As a result, applying these tools helps them derive necessary information, make informed business decisions, plan their next steps, and stay ahead of their competition.
From your Boss to the intern at the company, everybody will be allowed to understand the summarized data in a simple format without seeking any help. A well-structured data visualization shortens the time needed to absorb information, unveil outliers, and empower decision-makers to make data-driven decisions.
Types of Data Visualization
Each type of data visualization serves a specific purpose and is best suited for conveying particular types of information. Effective data visualization enhances understanding, uncovers patterns, and aids in decision-making. Thus, you will be able to decide which types of data visualization you should use based on the purpose.
We’ll be discussing five major data visualization types:
- 2D Area Visualization
- Temporal Visualization
- Multidimensional Visualization
- Hierarchical Visualization
- Network Visualization
Data Visualization Types #1 – 2D Area Visualization:
2-Dimensional Area Visualizations are geospatial visualizations. These visualizations emphasize the correlation between data points and their geographical positions to generate valuable insights. There are two sub-types of this – Cartograms and Choropleths.
Cartograms:
Cartograms are maps where the geometry or size of regions is distorted to represent a specific variable. For example, a cartogram might show countries resized according to their population, emphasizing more populous regions.
Choropleth Maps:
Chloropeth Maps represent regions or areas in shades or patterns to depict a quantitative variable. Darker shades indicate higher values, such as population density or income levels.
Data Visualization Types #2 – Temporal Visualization:
Temporal Visualizations are one-dimensional linear visualizations that represent start and finish times. For example, data representing website visits by day or month, revenue generated between a given time period, etc.
There are two Temporal Data Visualization Methods:
Time Series Graphs:
These graphs show how a single variable changes over time. Examples include stock price charts, weather temperature trends, or social media activity over a period.
Gantt Charts:
These charts are used to present project schedules, showing tasks or events along a timeline. Gantt charts help visualize task dependencies and project progress.
Data Visualization Types #3 – Multidimensional Visualization:
Multidimensional visualizations are used to depict data that have more than three data dimensions. For example, pie charts, histograms, and scatter plots.
Pie Charts:
Pie charts represent data in a circular graphic that is divided into sectors. Each section portrays a proportion or percentage of a whole. They’re primarily suitable for showing parts of a whole but may appear cluttered with too many categories.
Histograms:
A histogram is like a bar graph that simplifies data by putting it into groups. It shows how much data falls into different categories and gives a simplified picture of how things are spread out. It does this by dividing the data into sections and showing how many items are in each section.
Scatter Plots:
A scatter plot is a way to show data in points on a graph with horizontal and vertical lines. This helps us see how two things are related. It’s like connecting dots to find out if there’s a connection between them. It’s commonly used to find patterns or trends between the two things we study.
Data Visualization Types #4 – Hierarchical Visualization
This type of data visualization represents data by grouping and relating them to each other. There are two subtypes of hierarchical visualization – Tree Diagrams and Sunburst Diagrams.
Tree Diagrams:
Tree diagrams represent hierarchical relationships in a tree-like structure. Nodes represent entities, and edges show connections or parent-child relationships. Tree diagrams are useful for representing organizational structures or classifications.
Sunburst Charts:
These charts are radial diagrams that display hierarchical data as concentric rings. Each ring represents a level in the hierarchy, and segments within each ring show proportions or values.
Data Visualization Types #5 – Network Visualization
Network visualizations show a relationship between data sets in the form of a network. Node-link Diagrams and Force-Directed Graphs are two subtypes of this type of data visualization –
Node-Link Diagrams (Network Graphs):
A node-link diagram is a way to show connections in a network. It uses dots for the connected things (nodes) and lines to connect them. This helps us understand how different things are linked together.
Force-Directed Graphs:
A force-directed graph layout arranges things in a graph so they don’t overlap and the connections between them are balanced. It makes sure links are a similar length. This layout works well for any data, big or small, because it’s good at showing patterns and symmetries.
Impact of Types of Data Visualization in Business
Incorporating data visualization into business processes helps improve analytical capabilities, promotes data-driven decision-making, and fosters a culture of innovation, ultimately positioning businesses for sustained growth and competitive advantage. Let
9;s learn the impact of data visualization on businesses:
- Each type of data visualization enhances the decision-making of businesses by presenting complex information in a visually intuitive format.
- Visual representations simplify and streamline trend analysis and exploration within data.
- It accelerates the understanding of connections between operational actions and outcomes.
- Visualizing customer feedback provides a precise understanding of customer sentiments and opinions.
- User-friendly data visualizations encourage active participation and interpretation of data by non-technical users.
- Automated visual reports offer timely and contextual data insights for strategic decision-making.
- It reveals obscured patterns and profound trends, hidden insights, and intricate trends that might be overlooked in raw data.
Conclusion:
The following statistics show the positive impact of types of data visualization on businesses the world over. According to recent stats published by piktochart.com
- Visual language has proven to increase meeting effectiveness and efficiency, leading to 24% shorter meetings.
- Data Visuals discovery tools have helped 48% of the managers quickly find the data they require without the supervision of an IT staff.
- 74% of organizations that use visual data discovery empower managers to make decisions when necessary.
We have mentioned five types of data visualization that will help everyone understand the data representation of your business operations, track profitability, manage employee performances, and much more. We hope you have enjoyed reading our blog. Do leave your feedback or queries in the comments section.
