Visualization: the science of understanding your company’s data

Today, data feeds businesses, but with one critical thing to keep in mind: having raw data is not enough. It needs to be transformed into something more tangible to lead the game. Data visualization is a key to this transformation.

From understanding performance bottlenecks to identifying new or unnoticed opportunities, visualizing your company data adds clarity and focus to your business objectives.

Regardless of which data visualization tool you choose — Microsoft PowerBI, Tableau, or even free tools like Apache Superset — the process of effective data visualization follows a few key steps:

1. Define your purpose:? Start by clarifying your goals. Are you tracking trends, detecting anomalies, or exploring correlations?? Pinpointing the key metrics aligned with your objectives is crucial for a successful visualization strategy.
2. Know your audience:? Consider who will be using the dashboards. Are they internal stakeholders, external clients, or a mix of both?? Understanding their needs and technical proficiency level will guide your choice of visualization tools and design approach.? Additional factors like the number of potential users and their intended journeys will impact the underlying architecture and guarantee optimal performance and accessibility.
3. Prepare your data:? The adage "garbage in, garbage out" holds true for data visualization.?Clean, accurate, and well-structured data is crucial for generating high-quality visualizations. Hint: It is the right moment to consider a data analytics platform.
4. Prototype and test:? Before diving into full-scale development, create an interactive UI prototype and test it with your target users.? This is a key step that allows you to gather valuable feedback, see how real users behave, and check whether your design ideas are on the right track.
5. Refine and develop: Based on user feedback, refine the UI and UX to guarantee optimal clarity and usability.? Then, proceed with the development of your final dashboards, incorporating the feedback gained from the testing phase.
6. Launch, learn, and iterate:? Going live doesn’t mean the end of the journey.? Continuously collect feedback, monitor performance, and adjust your dashboards to ensure they remain relevant and effective.? Data visualization is an ongoing process of refinement and adaptation, with an ultimate goal of supporting changing business needs.

Ultimately, data visualization lets you do more than just collect data. It gives you a foundation for data-driven decisions that truly add value to our business.

Don’t have the right data visualization or data management expertise on board? You can count on EffectiveSoft to make sure your data visualization projects have a real impact.

Author: Aliaksei Kazlouski , Delivery Manager at EffectiveSoft