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Best Practices For Big Data Visualization

Big Data Visualization

Big data visualization is essential for any business. It is the procedure of showing data in graphs, map charts, and other visual forms. With that, people can interpret and understand data easily. In addition, big data visualization will also help you highlight observations that can’t be noticeable when viewing a list of values or numbers. 

With big data visualization, your organizational data can be easily understood by your team and other people. With it, you can deliver your message to everyone. To make the best of it for your organization, you need to know the best practices. The following are the best practices for big data visualization.   

Big Data Visualization best practices 

Know your target audience

The first thing to do for an effective big data visualization is to know your target audience. With this, you can formulate the best methods and techniques you will use for your specific audience. 

Some of your possible target audience can include business executives, marketers, social media managers, educators, and more. As you know your audience, you can make a visual that they will easily understand. Make sure to have understandable and clear data visualization to help them process information effectively. 

Understand your goal

It is also crucial to know your goal. Who is your target audience? What are your desired results? 

What is your expected info/ message? Before you deliver information, make sure that you make the right decisions for your data visualization. So, they will not misinterpret your data or message. 

Use the right data 

There are three data types in big data visualization, categorical, ordinal, and quantitative. You should use the correct data for your audience. To help you understand these three data types, read more. 

Ordinal data – this data comes with a logical sequence and logically accorded together

Quantitative data – this data is used to provide how much is there in a specific thing

Categorical data – these are data that belong together

It is also crucial that your data is clean. Data cleaning is the procedure of filtering out inaccuracies or anomalies in your data set. Keep in mind that data cleaning is important before using your data for a specific purpose. Thus, inaccuracies can lead to wrong data interpretation among your audience. 

Keep simple dashboard and visualization 

Keep your dashboard and visualization simple. Your data designs have a significant impact, so keep it simple and professional. With a better visualization, your audience can help themselves to access the correct information. They will also understand the message that you want to share with them. 

Engagement of users 

In big data visualization, you can also engage your users. For example, you can encourage them towards data discovery through metric notifications and regular scheduling of email reports. You can provide them with calls to action and continuous engagement. 

Make an emphasis on the important points 

Another best practice in big data visualization is to emphasize the essential points. With this, your audience can follow the idea that you want to convey with your visualization technique. For example, you can use highlighted trends or reference lines to direct the attention of the reader. 

Choose the right dashboard 

Choose the right dashboard to make your data visualization more effective. Some of the best dashboards you can choose from are:

Analytical – these are interactive dashboards. It can help you to experiment or research with data to address concerns 

Strategic – strategic dashboards are ideal for department heads and C-Suite executives. It provides a complete analysis of the success of organization about KPI metrics 

Operational – operational dashboards have frequently updated data that will satisfy standards of daily operations

Empower your audience 

The main goal of big data visualization implementation is to empower your audience. Make sure that your information will cultivate action. You can also determine the priority of your audience. Determine the best KPIs that will answer strategic business questions. Include only actionable and meaningful data for your visualization. Your visualization should also match your mission. 

Check if your data is readable in any format 

It is also necessary to check if your data is readable in different formats. Are the design of your charts are understandable on both Power BI mobile devices and PCs? Therefore, you should have a mobile-friendly content to help your audience get easy access to your organization. 

Use colors 

Another tip for effective big data visualization is to add colors. It can be a valuable tool to communicate essential details effectively. With this, you can help people to determine what was conveyed in a specific color. 

Gather feedback 

With data visualization, you can transform complex data into a simple and more understandable data that can offer the right message or info. Well, you can also get a feedback to know how effectively you communicate through data visualization. 

Now that you have learned the best practices for big data visualization, you should also know its importance. 

Why is big data visualization important for your organization? 

Delivering the correct data is crucial for the success of your business or organization. The following are the reasons why big data visualization is essential for your business. 

Take note that time-sequence data can capture trends. However, spotting trends hidden in data can be challenging. Fortunately, using big data visualization strategies can help you spot these trends. With these trends, you can unlock opportunities for your business.

Review a large number of data 

It also helps to review large data and make it more understandable for everyone. For example, presenting your data in a graphical form can help your audience understand what idea you want to deliver. 

Determine correlations and unexpected relationships 

Another importance of big data visualization is that it allows you to discover data sets. So, it will help them to discover insights. You can do this by removing or adding data sets, eliminating outliers, changing scales, and changing the type of visualization. 

Effective presentation of data to others 

Big data visualization allows you to communicate to others through effective data presentation. It helps you to deliver the right information for both external and internal business presentations. 

Advantages of using Big Data Visualization to your organization 

Big data visualization can be beneficial for your organization. We can’t deny that we are now in a data-driven world. With that, business data is essential for the growth of your company. Meanwhile, data comes in different formats. So, make sure to deliver the right data to your target audience.

Are you curious how big data visualization can benefit your business? Read more. 

  • Streamline planning and decision-making
  • Optimization of data use
  • Allows you to extract better insights for you, your clients, and partners
  • It also helps to improve operational efficiency and productivity 
  • Determine the ways to reduce operating costs
  • With it, you can discover how to improve your products or service
  • You can also better understand your customers and their experience
  • It can help you to mitigate and discover risk
  • It helps to determine growth opportunities and improve revenue streams
  • Big data visualization can help you enhance your service/ product propositions and target marketing
  • You will know how to improve customer loyalty   

Big Data Visualization Types 

In addition to learning the best practices for big data visualization, it is also helpful to know its various types. 

Line charts 

This type of big data visualization is ideal for showing the relationships between the data points. You can also use it for showing trends and changes to compare different components in a specific period. 

Pie or donut charts 

Pie or donut charts are divided into segments that can display numerical values. With this visualization, you can determine how the parts differ to each other. 

Bar charts 

You can use bar charts for the comparison of quantities of items or categories. The height or length of each bar can represent a value of every item or category.

Scatter maps or charts 

With this data visualization, you can use markers like squares, dots, and more. It can display the variation of two data items on the Y and X axes. 

Bubble charts

Bubble charts work like scatter charts; however, their markers are shown by bubbles that can add to the data representing the size of a category or item. 

Treemaps  

Treemaps are ideal to use for comparison of value within and between categories. 

Population pyramids 

It uses a stacked bar graph to display the complex social narrative of the population. 

There we go, so that is the list of some types of big data visualization you can use for your organization. 

Conclusion  

Big data visualization can help you to help your target audience discover about your business. Thus, you can deliver the correct information with the help of the best data visualization techniques. It will help you understand more about your customers to improve your products or services to meet their needs and satisfaction.  Even more important, you can have an effective big data visualization by applying the best practices mentioned above. It can help you to develop strong relationships with your target audience. Generally, big data visualization can help you gain helpful insights that can provide opportunities for your business. 

Errin OConnor

Errin OConnor

With over 25 years of experience in Information Technology and Management Consulting, Errin O’Connor has led hundreds of large-scale enterprise implementations from Business Intelligence, Power BI, Office 365, SharePoint, Exchange, IT Security, Azure and Hybrid Cloud efforts for over 165 Fortune 500 companies.

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