Data Analysis – Big Data and computer tools
Our information age more often feels like an era of information overload. Excess
amounts of information are overwhelming; raw data becomes useful only when we apply
methods of deriving insight from it.
Fortunately, we humans are intensely visual creatures. Few of us can detect patterns
among rows of numbers, but even young children can interpret bar charts, extracting
meaning from those numbers’ visual representations. For that reason, data visualization
is a powerful exercise.Visualizing data is the fastest way to communicate it to others.
Of course, visualizations, like words, can be used to lie, mislead, or distort the truth. But
when practiced honestly and with care, the process of visualization can help us see the
world in a new way, revealing unexpected patterns and trends in the otherwise hidden
information around us. At its best, data visualization is expert storytelling.
More literally, visualization is a process of mapping information to visuals. We craft
rules that interpret data and express its values as visual properties.
