What is data visualization? And why is it important?
Data visualization is the visual representation of information. People have have used visualizations to explain the world around them for thousands of years. The main goal of data visualization is to communicate information clearly and effectively through graphical means. Viewing data in this way allows for universal and immediate insight by tapping into our mind’s powerful visual processing system.
Advances in technology have made data visualizations more prevalent and powerful than ever before. Businesses realize that the ability to visualize data effectively leads to better understanding, insight, and business decisions.
What makes a good visualization?
- Effective: the viewer gets it (ease of interpretation)
- Accurate: sufficient for correct quantitative evaluation
- Efficient: minimize data-ink ratio and chart-junk, show data, maximize data-ink ratio
- Aesthetic: must not offend but rather appeal to the viewer’s senses
- Adaptable: can adjust to serve multiple needs
What is Tableau?
Tableau is groundbreaking data visualization software created by Tableau Software. Tableau provides a great way of mapping data to graphics whereby the viewer can interact with the data.
Tableau connects easily to nearly any data source, such as Data Warehouse, Microsoft Excel, or web-based data, and can transform data into visually appealing, interactive visualizations called dashboards, which can be analyzed instantaneously. Tableau’s process takes only seconds or minutes rather than months or years, and is achieved through the use of an easy to use drag-and-drop interface.
The best part about this software is that you can create almost any type of visualization, whether it be tracking sales and opportunities, analyzing website traffic trends, conducting product survey analysis, or tracking company performance, to name just a few.
For some great visualization examples, check out Tableau’s Public Gallery:
http://www.tableausoftware.com/learn/gallery
How is Tableau leading the way?
Tableau is revolutionizing data analytics. Thousands of organizations are using Tableau to see and understand their data. With Tableau, companies are turning their data into actionable insight and making better business decisions.
Tableau is leading the world in making the data visualization process available and easy to use for both business users and individual users alike. Here is how they are leading the way:
Speed to market
Tableau was designed to process and analyze data in a logical, easy to follow manner. This results in far less development time, making your data actionable faster. The ability to adapt to a market quickly is an enormous competitive advantage. Tableau enables you to make rapid business decisions based off your data, giving you that advantage.
Easy to use
Many data visualization platforms are difficult to use. Tableau eliminates unnecessary complications, placing the focus on what matters most, finding value in your data. Tableau’s simple drag-and-drop interface is easy to learn, so you don’t need to be a data genius to operate it.
Big data
Hailed for its Big Data analysis capabilities, Tableau makes processing large amounts of data look effortless. Tableau can analyze and visualize your data better than any data visualization software on the market, no matter how big it is.
Any data
All data is created equal in Tableau. The user-friendly interface is supported by a lighting-fast data engine that processes data from various sources with unprecedented intuition. You no longer need to worry about which data visualization software to use based on your data, because Tableau does it all.
Stunning, interactive visualizations
The most recognizable advantage Tableau has over its competitors is its ability to produce beautiful data visualizations. Hands down, Tableau offers the most attractive yet functional data visualizations of any data visualization software.
Compatibility across multiple platforms
Tableau has revolutionized the business analytics industry by making insight immediately accessible to anyone, whether it’s through a desktop tool, web browser, iPad or mobile phone. Tableau Desktop is available to use on both Macs and PCs.
Industry leader
Tableau has won countless awards throughout the business intelligence industry and is quickly becoming the standard for quality data visualization. Tableau has even won over the business intelligence industry experts at Gartner as the business intelligence platform of choice.