Data Visualization for Decision Making: The Complete Guide

Good decision-making is one of the most critical building blocks to success in any sector or company. Whether you are a high or low-level decision-maker at your firm, having visual data for improved communication is essential. When a company grows, so does the amount of data. That is when the need arises for data visualization for decision making.

What is the importance of Data Visualization?

Data visualization is the process of representing data or information using visual elements, such as graphs, charts, diagrams, and maps. Data visualization for decision making aims to provide a clear and concise representation of data that viewers can easily understand.

Presenting data visually allows patterns and trends to be identified more quickly and easily, making it an effective tool for data analysis and communication. It can be used in various fields, including business, science, engineering, and social sciences, to aid decision-making, provide insights, and facilitate communication.

Data visualization tools are often used to create these visual representations, ranging from simple bar charts and pie charts to more complex network graphs and interactive dashboards. The choice of visualization depends on the type of data being presented and the purpose of the analysis.

How do we make decisions?

The average person makes 35,000 decisions per day. Before Big Data, people developed, adapted, and enhanced decision-making strategies. Scientists have also been researching these approaches for decades, attempting to understand how we make excellent and avoid bad decisions.

So, how do we get to a decision?

According to research, humans make decisions by generating ideas and selecting actions through “mental processes influenced by biases, reason, emotions, and memories.” While we strive to reach sensible, logical conclusions, many circumstances can hinder our decision-making.

How can we use Data Visualization for decision making?

The following criteria must be fulfilled to reap the most significant benefits from data visualization for decision making:

• The visualizations in a given presentation must be the most relevant and appropriate for the information in question, typically the source data.
• The data must be paired with background information that places the charts, figures, and symbols in perspective for all interested parties to understand.
• The visualizations must provide crucial data in a way that suggests appropriate next steps.

As long as data visualization is established with all three of the above components in place, analysts can rapidly put the insights they gain into action, all with great confidence that the next step will bring about newfound heights of success.

Let us now understand how data visualization can help in decision making.

Facilitates understanding

Data visualization presents complex data intuitively and easily. This makes it easier for decision-makers to identify patterns, relationships, and outliers and to make more informed decisions based on the data.

Reveals insights

Data visualization can reveal insights and trends that may be difficult to spot with traditional data analysis methods. For example, a graph or chart may indicate that certain factors are strongly correlated or that specific data points are outliers.

Enables data exploration

Interactive visualizations allow decision-makers to explore data more deeply and from different angles. This can lead to discovering new insights and opportunities that may have yet to be apparent.

Encourages data-driven decision-making

Data visualization can help decision-makers make more data-driven decisions by presenting data clearly and concisely. This can lead to better outcomes, as decisions are based on a complete understanding of the available data.

Benefits of Data Visualization

We have understood how data visualization help in decision making. Let us now dig into the advantages of data visualization.

Visualized data is processed faster

Data visualization tools get into our biological sweet spot. The human mind may not intuitively understand complex statistical models or things like ‘R squared’ values, but we are reasonably competent at detecting patterns in visual displays.

Data visualization show insights that may be missed in traditional reports

Putting the entire firm in the habit of viewing dashboard reports and data visualization can aid in gaining a better understanding of the company. Visualization tools may create visualizations once the organization has identified the information and KPIs that should be represented. Sales by period, call time per customer; or deals closed by sales reps are some data visualization examples.

Data visualization provides actionable insights

Data visualization can help your organization identify areas for improvement or high performance. By identifying accomplishments and areas for improvement, actionable insights can be developed.

Conclusion

Data visualization has evolved into a more efficient and effective communication and motivational method. Data visualization tools make it quick and easy to develop charts and graphs that can be integrated into a customized dashboard.

With the Data Science course offered by AlmaBetter, you can also learn how to create interactive and visually appealing dashboards. You will work on many projects to improve your creative and analytical skills. Join us now!