The Art of Data Visualization

As a Finance major, the amount of data I look at throughout the course of a semester is overwhelming. Although no numbers are the exact same for any given data set, one commonality that runs throughout all data is how the numbers are presented - Excel. Prior to watching the posted Youtube video, I almost forgot that it is possible to present data without the typical letter-number named cells.

This is where data visualization comes in. The video explained that data visualization is an interactive  presentation of information and that a successful piece takes a complicated set of data and makes it instantly understandable. Some data visualization examples are shown below:

The red and blue circles illustrate the paths of  FBI and DHS aircraft. The thicker the circles, the more frequently traveled/monitored (via: http://blog.visme.co/best-information-graphics-2016/). 

 The above visual exploits the reliability of each scene in the named movies. True is blue and red is false (via: http://blog.visme.co/best-information-graphics-2016/). 

The video also mentioned that when you are creating a visual, it is important to take into account three points: 

1.) Yourself - the designer 

2.) The audience/ "reader" - keep their individual biases in mind 

3.) Data - the truth 

The interesting point behind these principles is that it does not just apply to artistic visuals, but it can also apply to straight-forward Excel documents. For instance, when I am putting together a data sheet, I not only organize the numbers in a way that I understand, but I have to do so in a way for others to understand as well (points #1&2). Finally, it is obviously important to put the correct data in, or else there will not be truth behind the document or graph. 

Even though data visualization may be more pleasing to the eye, and sometimes even easier to understand overall, art and business are not too different!