Business analysis glossary
Data Visualisation
What it is
Data visualisation is presenting data as charts, maps and tables so patterns, comparisons and outliers are easy to see. The right chart type depends on the question: trends suit lines, comparisons suit bars, shares suit simple part-to-whole charts. Good choices are simple, labelled clearly, use colour to mean something and avoid decoration that distracts from the data.
Why it matters
Good visuals help people decide faster and with fewer mistakes. Poor choices, such as crowded pie charts or truncated axes, mislead or hide the message. Analysts choose a chart by asking what comparison the reader needs to make, and then test whether a newcomer can read the message in a few seconds.
Example
To show monthly late deliveries at Brightpath Logistics, the analyst uses a simple line chart with a clearly labelled target line. A long list of figures would have hidden that lateness has risen for three months. The dispatcher can see the trend immediately and the target line shows whether it is acceptable, without reading any figures.