The Game-Changing Power of Visualization
February 8, 2017
Data visualization may be hitting at just the right time. Data Floq shared an article highlighting the latest, Data Visualisation Can Change How We Think About The World. As the article mentions, we are primed for it biologically: the human eye and brain processes 10 to 12 separate images per second, comfortably. Considering the output, visualization provides the ability to rapidly incorporate new data sets, remove metadata and increase performance. Data visualization is not without challenge. The article explains,
Perhaps the biggest challenge for data visualisation is understanding how to abstract and represent abstraction without compromising one of the two in the process. This challenge is deep rooted in the inherent simplicity of descriptive visual tools, which significantly clashes with the inherent complexity that defines predictive analytics. For the moment, this is a major issue in communicating data; The Chartered Management Institute found that 86% of 2,000 financiers surveyed late 2013, were still struggling to turn volumes of data into valuable insights. There is a need, for people to understand what led to the visualisation, each stage of the process that led to its design. But, as we increasingly adopt more and more data this is becoming increasingly difficult.
Is data visualization changing how we think about the world, or is the existence of big data the culprit? We would argue data visualization is simply a tool to present data; it is a product rather than an impetus for a paradigm shift. This piece is right, however in bringing attention to the conflict between detail and accessibility of information. We can’t help but think the meaning is likely in the balancing of both.
Megan Feil, February 8, 2017
Comments
-
- Subscribe to Beyond Search
Feature archive
News archive
-
