Data Visualization: Communication & Creativity | Machines Pensantes | Scoop.it

Visual communication skills are alien to some in the research industry, but they needn’t be. Data visualisation can become part of the research process through smart hiring, skills training and expert partnerships.

 

Data visualisation should not be regarded as an end in itself; the real point to data visualisation - the value that it brings to research buyers and suppliers - is as an aid to storytelling. It’s about seeing the patterns in the data that flush out a story and then help you to start telling that story. Only by doing that can you move data off the spreadsheet and out into the real world of consumer behaviour and preferences.

The best analogy and the one used frequently, is with journalism. It’s no surprise either that many great examples of data visualisation come from the publishing and media sectors. Journalists face the same challenge that we do of sifting large amounts of often conflicting data to arrive at a truth or an insight...


Via Lauren Moss