Estimated reading time: 5 minutes

Data visualisation definition

Every day your business generates more data on sales revenue, marketing performance, customer interactions, inventory levels, production metrics, staffing levels, costs, and other KPIs. But with so much data to sift through, it can be difficult for people to see the story it tells.

Data visualisation helps you turn all that granular data into easily understood, visually compelling and useful business information. By tapping into external data sources, today’s data visualisation tools don’t simply let you see your KPIs more clearly, they unify data and apply AI-driven analytics to reveal relationships between your KPIs, the market, and the world.

In the world of big data, data visualisation tools and technologies are essential for analysing massive amounts of information and making data-driven decisions.

Benefits of data visualisation

Hidden within your data lie important insights that can help drive business forward. But the challenge is that you can’t always connect the dots by looking at raw numbers alone. When you look at your data presented in a visual format, patterns, connections, and other insights emerge that would otherwise remain out of sight.

Data visualisation brings data to life, making you the master storyteller of the insights hidden within your numbers. Through live data dashboards, interactive reports, charts, graphs, and other visual representations, data visualisation helps users develop powerful business insight quickly and effectively.

Big data is here and we need to know what it says

As the Age of Big Data kicks into high gear, visualisation is an increasingly key tool to make sense of the trillions of rows of data generated every day. Data visualisation helps to tell stories by curating data into a form that is easier to understand, highlighting the trends and outliers. A good visualisation tells a story, removing the noise from data and highlighting the useful information.

However, its not simply as easy as just dressing up a graph to make it look better or slapping on the info part of an infographic. Effective data visualisation is a delicate balancing act between form and function. The plainest graph could be too boring to catch any notice or it could make a powerful point; the most stunning visualisation could utterly fail at conveying the right message or it could speak volumes. The data and the visuals need to work together, and there’s an art to combining great analysis with great storytelling.

How to make the most of data visualisation

Being able to see the story within the numbers makes data visualisation a powerful tool for sharing and communicating information. Data visualisation can be used for demonstrating performance, communicating trends, understanding the impact of new strategies, showing relationships, and beyond. These representations can be powerful tools for communication and collaboration, bringing greater value to reports, journalism, apps, or any context where sharing information is required.

Drive better decision making with data visualisation

While stunning, rich visuals can be great tools for communicating ideas, the end benefit of data visualisation is its ability to drive better decision making. Here are a few ways data visualisation helps with strategic decision making:

Evaluating data visualisation tools

Today’s data visualisation tools run the gamut from free versions you can access with a browser to feature-rich platforms that integrate with a wide variety of mainstream business applications.

But with so many data visualisation tools, how do you choose the right solution for your specific needs? In the end, you want a tool that gives you the insights you need to help you focus on what matters most.

Here are some key questions you’ll want to keep in mind as you look for a data visualisation solution with the right balance of power, flexibility, and ease-of-use for your needs:

What are your goals and needs?

Take a moment to list out what types of data you have and what kinds of information and insights you want to gather.

What features do you require?

Top data visualisation solutions include features like business intelligence, analytics, enterprise reporting capabilities, giving you flexibility to meet your needs both today and tomorrow.

Where will your data come from?

Consider how you’ll connect or import your data and determine if the tool offers a seamless fit with your systems.

Where will you need to see your data?

Find a tool that allows you to take your data and dashboards with you on any device, for quick insight and collaboration anywhere you are.

Where will you need to see your data?

Think about where your final presentation will be published. On a website, in a blog post, or in an online news article? Find a tool that allows flexibility to post and share your data visualisation wherever your story should be told one that lets you create data stories with amazing interactive visualisations and easily publish them to your blog or website.