The Global Data Visualisation Market Size is projected to reach USD 19.20 billion by 2027, exhibiting a CAGR of 10.2%. (*source: Fortunebusinessinsights). The ever-rising demand for big data and data analytics is pushing the big software companies and visualisation platforms to provide the best visualization tools for individuals and companies that include real-time analytics and give predictive analysis.

Data visualization has evolved a lot from simple cave drawings to intricate dashboards. The history of data visualszation is full of implausible stories marked by various events and milestones.

Since Data helps us in making sense of the big numbers and information – it is crucial to put these numbers in the form of charts, drawings, and patterns, make associations, understand the trends and find insights to make informed decisions.

At times, the volume and complexity of data make it difficult for our brains to comprehend hence visual elements like tables, charts, and graphs provide a powerful representation of such voluminous data points. 

Data visualization is the presentation of data in a pictorial or graphical format that enables us to see analytics presented visually and grasp difficult concepts. The interactive visualization also lets us see the data we want to see – interactively changing charts and information.

What makes Data visualization important?

Since the human brain processes in a way that visualizing large amounts of complex data via charts and graphs is easier than reading spreadsheets or reports, data visualization is very important. It is a quick and easy way to convey concepts in a universal manner.

Data visualization helps professionals and business owners in the following ways – 

• Identifying the areas that need attention
• Clarifying which factors influence customer behavior
• Predicting sales volume

Benefits of Data Visualisation

As we have learned now, there are many benefits of data visualization. Modern companies are generating massive amounts of data through machine learning. It is important to have correct data before you start working upon the data – hence we must sort, filter, and understand the information. 

Let us go through some of the benefits of data visualization for professionals and businesses – 

a)  Robust Value Propositions: Not every time it is an easy task to express your findings to the stakeholders or your clients hence, visualizing your data is an excellent strategy that can increase buy-ins into ideas. 

b) Data visualisation enables faster and easier communication: Sharing simplified messages through visual content is easy and fast. Potential customers and investors get attracted and persuaded by the visual data as compared to text. 

c)  Analyze Patterns and Trends: Business industries depend on specific patterns and trends to make decisions based on market patterns and trends. Visualizing data summarizes the entire process of identifying current and future opportunities. Learn how business intelligence strategy proves beneficial for CIOS. 

d)  Improves Customer Experience: Data visualisation plays a critical role in improving one’s customer experience. One can easily make out whether their customers are satisfied or not. 

5 Common data visualization types

Many times, business owners find it tricky to understand which data visualisation to choose, and even at times, professionals find it difficult. To create an insightful and powerful report that accelerates business decision-making lies in understanding your business needs.

We will discuss some common data visualisation use cases used across industries – 

1. Bar Chart

Bar charts, and column charts have rectangle bars arranged on both X & Y-axis. Comparing objects by aligning them with the same parameters is the most popular visualization. To track changes over time Bar charts are often used. 

There are different categories of bar graphs like stacked bar graphs, 100% stacked bar graphs, grouped bar graphs, box plots, and waterfall charts. Bar charts are best fitted while Comparing a numerical value across categories, Identifying the order within a category, and Representing a histogram. 

One can use a bar chart for a visual representation of your overall business revenue against your competition. 

2. Doughnut Chart 

In this, a doughnut is sliced into multiple parts based on the field value. Doughnut charts or pie charts are suitable for depicting parts of a whole relationship, where all units together represent 100%. These doughnut charts are interactive and help users decipher complex data to get to the source of the issue or the solution.

One can analyze their company’s budget using a doughnut chart – splitting the total budget across expenses, investments, loans, savings, etc. which gives an instant understanding of your budget plan.

3. Line Graph 

Line graphs with values plotted as lines across both X and Y-axis are used to track changes over a short/long time period. These are better to use than bar graphs when the changes are minor. You can also use the multi-line graph option when you need to compare changes over the same time period for more than one attribute. Line graphs are best used for displaying trend over a time series, Pinpoint outliers, and Visualize forecasted data. 

If you want to analyze your business’ month-wise expenditure, then a line graph will give you the best rendition by plotting the values across given months on the X-axis and expenditure on the Y-axis.

4. Pivot Table

As the name indicates, the Pivot table has columns and rows with aggregated values populated in the cells. The pivot table comes across as a simple visualization used to convey a huge amount of data in a single glance. Picot tables are easy to build and flexible in modification. 

Generally, pivot tables are used to depict financial reports, especially by financial institutions or banks or even businesses to depict operating cash flows for example, investing cash flow, cash from financing, and other metrics on the columns that will help you understand your business’s cash flow over the years.

5. Scatter Plot

A Scatter plot basically shows the relationship of the common attribute between two numerical variables plotted along the X and Y axis. If you are working with different sets of data, a scatter plot would be something that you commonly work with. Best suitable to compare two numerical values simultaneously. There are segmentation charts that help in demarking the scatter plot into four quadrants, making the choice of the users easier. And another is the Bubble sort which brings an additional dimension to the chart by displaying varied sizes of bubbles over the scatter plot. 

For example, you need to present data for product price revision using the scatter plot by bringing in the number of units sold on the X-axis and the current price displayed on the Y-axis, and the products on the quadrant. This will give you a clear outlook on the products that have a low price and still manage to have good sales and can be considered for price increment. Also, you may bring in a price drop for products that have low demand.

Best Tools for Data Visualization 

Well, there are a couple of major players in the data visualization market such as Salesforce.com, Oracle, IBM, SAP SE, Microsoft, Alteryx, Inc., Databox, Dundas, and many others. There are some vendors in the league also offering specialized big data visualization software – like Tableau, Qlik, Tibco and Zoho.

But in this blog, we will only give you the 5 best data visualisation tools that you may choose from to succeed in your data analytics and business.

Let’s get started…

1.  Tableau

Tableau is one of the most popular tools mainly used for BI analysis and data visualization – helping companies to create interactive dashboards with advanced visual analytics. One can develop interactive charts, maps, graphs, and other graphics with Tableau. You may use cloud hosting directly on Tableau’s server and you may even install the software on your own device for use.

Pros:

• Tableau is intuitive and user-friendly.
• You are allowed to access the files using the cloud and data warehouses.
• It offers you various features. 

Cons:

• Sometimes the tool is incapable in scaling up Tableau adoption within the company.
• Tableau does not support many third-party data connectors.

2. Power BI

Power BI is another popular data visualization and business analytics solution owned by Microsoft Company. Power BI has native integration along with other Microsoft services such as Azure, Excel and SQL; and all prove beneficial during data visualization. This visualisation tool has pre-built connectors that can easily fetch data from tools like Salesforce and Google Analytics.

Pros

• Power BI is an easy-to-use tool and is great for non-techie professionals. But still, to use Power BI to the optimum level and get great visualisation for your business reports with helpful insights, you must seek expert data visualisation services. 
• It has native integration with other Microsoft tools and it also aggregates data from different resources, including marketing and sales services.  
• It gives a free trial and has much cheaper tiers compared to other data visualization tools.

Cons

• The free version gives you access to a limited number of features and it also causes lags while processing large amounts of data.
• Enterprise features tools are missing

3. Google Data Studio

This is another trending and popular Data visualisation tool available in the market. Data Studio is a free data visualization tool by Google. It smoothly connects with all other Google properties and data sources, including third parties. 

Its popularity comes from its dynamic capabilities that help marketers maintain and share updated reports smoothly. The changes to source are automatically updated in the reports; including customized and shareable graphs, charts, and tables.

Data Studio can be easily accessed from other Google products such as Google Analytics and others; just log in with the same logins. 

Pros:

• It is a great data visualisation tool available for free.
• The visuals are easy to build and customize according to ones needs.
• There are regular updates on the new features 
• It is very easy to implement and deploy

Cons:

• Many times third-party connectors “disconnect,” and the data shows as missing.
• While using some data sources, there is a steep learning curve
• If there is an issue with the tool, there is no customer support to help. 

4. Salesforce Einstein Analytics

Salesforce Einstein Analytics which is one of the major players in data visualization gives its users a lot of options to design customized dashboards as they want. It gives a comprehensive view of options to look over such as line graphs, bar diagrams, maps, scatter plots, treemap, funnel, origami, and more with custom query and dashboard design functioning. 

This advanced BI tool helps in investigating the data and representing it attractively, empowering its users to communicate the insights in a meaningful way. 

Pros

• One of the most significant USPs is its high degree of flexibility.
• This visualisation tool is very easy to manage. 
• Tableau CRM or Einstein Analytics however you may call it– gives us abundant options with various apps. 
• It is known as the world’s largest web-based platform. 

Cons

• Sometimes users face trouble in data migration and data mapping. 
• Issues such as Duplicate Records are also experienced by users
• Many times in real-time integration data misinterpretation occurs 

5. Qlikview

 Another popular data visualization tool that will be helpful to your business is Qlikview. It includes a wide range of features that can let you work on more customized data. This tool has numerous data visualization capabilities for your business, including analytics, business intelligence, and enterprise reporting. 

One of the best features of this data visualisation tool is that one can combine all data coming from different sources. Hence, Qlikview is a great tool that helps in combining all data together in one visual.

Prons and Cons of Qlikview – 

• It provides fast and Dynamic BI Ecosystem for user
• Its dynamic visual dashboards and applications let users in efficient data interpretation and analysis.
• QlikView is an easy self-service BI tool that lets non-techie professionals use it efficiently 
• It’s a hassle-free software that can be used for years and requires no or Low maintenance.
• The data security provision of the tool is very stringent and the creators guarantee the safety of critical corporate data. Full assurance of no security breach is given to the customer.
• Due to its in-memory system, even after multiple users request data; the data delivery is not hampered. 

Cons

• Lacks drag and drop interface
• Poor customer support
• Integrating Qlikview with other software is a bit off in appearance
• Qlikview demands a lot of other purchases hence it makes it difficult for small businesses to afford it – they shift to many affordable options.

Data visualization and Big Data

The rapidly increasing popularity of big data and data analytics need have made data visualization more crucial than ever. Now big brands and companies are more inclined toward machine learning for gathering massive amounts of data for business growth. Now, these massive amounts of data need sorting and filtering of the data. The data visualization technique presents information to business owners and stakeholders in easier ways that is understandable.

Big data visualization such as pie charts, histograms, and corporate graphs is different from normal visualisation and more. Big data visualization requires robust computer systems to fetch raw data, process and curate it into graphical representations for easy human understanding and quickly draw insights.

On one hand, big data visualization is beneficial but it also poses several challenges to organizations; such as – 

• Information should be accurate – both source and the data.
• An expert or certified big data professional can only identify the best data sets, visualisation styles and seek insights.
• The IT team’s involvement required robust computer systems with efficient storage spaces or to work in the cloud.
• The insights provided by big data visualization will only be as accurate as the information being visualized. Therefore, it is essential to have people and processes in place to govern and control the quality of corporate data, metadata and data sources.

Data Visualization is essential in various sectors – use cases

Sales and marketing: Marketing teams pay close attention to their sources of website traffic and each kind of sale happening online and offline. It is crucial for sales and marketing teams to evaluate their web traffic and how their web properties generate revenue. Data visualization makes it easy to decipher traffic trends over time as a result of marketing efforts.

Politics: A common use of data visualization in politics is a geographic map that displays the party each state or district voted for.

Healthcare: Healthcare professionals often use choropleth maps for understanding important health data. This choropleth map displays divided geographical areas assigned in a certain color in relation to a numeric variable. Such maps allow healthcare professionals to see how a variable, such as the mortality rate of heart disease, changes across specific regions.

Scientists: Scientific visualization also referred to commonly as SciVis, allows scientists and researchers to gain useful insights from their experimental data.

Finance: For Finance professionals, it is crucial to track the performance of their investment decisions while buying or selling an asset. Mostly Candlestick charts are used as trading tools that help finance professionals to depict and analyze price movements over a certain period of time and much more. Analysts and finance professionals can detect trends through such charts.

Logistics: Shipping companies can use appropriate visualization tools to determine the best shipping routes, warehouse stocks, and much more.

Summing up:

Data visualisation plays an important role in big data, data analytics, and business growth – you have learned all that above. If your business needs data analytics or data visualization services you can get in touch with a leading data visualisation agency. 

We have expert professionals who are certified and experienced and will help you deliver wonderfully crafted dashboards and present your data in a form that is easy to interpret and understandable and also bring you very meaningful and helpful insights that will help you take the right business decisions and ignite your sales and business growth.