What is Information Visualization and Communication?

Visual representations of information act as cognition aids to help people improve their thought process.

We live in a world where data drives our economy. Business Analytics is the scientific process of transforming data into insight for making better decisions. But what good is business analytics without the presentation and communication of that insight into a form that can be understood by and acted upon by decision makers?

Enter Information Visualization. Are you familiar with the sayings “a picture is worth a thousand words” or “seeing is believing”? Visual representations of data are cognition aids — helping people to improve their thought processes. Visual analytics and information visualization help people to understand data better and to make more informed decisions.

“The greatest value of a picture is when it forces us to notice what we never expected to see.”

John Wilder Tukey, Mathematician

Tukey suggested that the idea of visualization helps us see what we have not noticed before. Humans need a way to digest data through the visualization of trends, outliers, and patterns. Information visualization tools provide this insight.

Needed Visualization Skills

The demand for business analytics and information visualization expertise in the workplace is driven by the need for data-driven decision-making. This is true in business, but also true in other disciplines: medicine, science, engineering and many others. We all must become effective creators and communicators of information visualizations, but at the same time become effective consumers as well.

Effective Creation and Communication Skills include:

• Visualization Design
• Best Practices
• Visualization Types and Selection
• Dashboard Development
• Presentation and Storytelling

Effective Consumption Skills include:

• Understanding Creator Bias
• Understanding of Data Misrepresentation
• Understanding of Attempts at Misinformation

By becoming effective creators, communicators, and consumers of information visualization, we can best utilize the analytics drawn from data to improve our decision making processes.