What is visual analytics?

Visual analytics involves using interactive visual representations, such as graphs, charts, maps, and other types of images, to support the analysis and exploration of large and complex data sets. Visual analytics aims to provide a more intuitive and effective way of discovering patterns, identifying relationships, and helping businesses make better decisions. 

Using a combination of data visualization and analytical tools, visual analytics enables people to analyze data in real time, interact with it in meaningful ways, and communicate their findings to others easily and understandably. 

As I mentioned in a previous post (Organizing and Understanding Data), many data visualization software help people visualize data effectively. Data visualization software aims to turn raw data into a graphical representation, so stakeholders can visualize the data and help them make better decisions. 

Data Visualization Software

Tableau, Microsoft Power BI, and Google Data Studio are today’s most popular data visualization. They all offer the possibility to connect with flat flies, excel files, and database files. Pretty much all of them work in the following sequence: 

• Data import. The first step is to import and process the data, establish database connections, fix issues, and standardize the data. 
• Visualization design. Depending on your needs, you can create charts, graphics, and tables, make calculations, format the data, etc. 
• Interactivity. Many data visualization software allows users to interact with visualizations in real-time, such as zooming in and out, panning, and selecting data points. This makes it easier to explore data and find meaningful patterns and relationships.
• Data analysis. You can make statistical modeling and data analysis with the pre-built stat/calc package in this type of software. 

Google Data Studio is free, Microsoft Power BI can cost your organization around $5,000, then $20 per user, and Tableu can cost $840 per year per user. 

Let’s talk about Tableau 

Today we will take a little more about Tableau. This software was developed by Tableau Inc., a company in Seatle, WA. They offer free training videos but you need to open a free account first. Once you have your account, you can download a trial version or the public version; once installed on your computer, you can follow these steps: 

1. Connect to your data: To create a visualization in Tableau, you need to connect to your data. You can connect with different data sources, including spreadsheets, databases, and cloud services. Once connected to your data, Tableau will load it into the workbook and display it in the Data Source tab.
2. Create a new worksheet: To create a visualization, you must create a new worksheet in Tableau. You can do this by clicking on the “New Worksheet” button in the toolbar or selecting Worksheet > New Worksheet from the menu.
3. Choose your visualization type: Tableau provides a wide range of visualization options, including bar charts, line charts, scatter plots, and maps. You can choose a visualization type from the “Show Me” menu in the toolbar. For this example, we will create a bar chart.
4. Drag and drop fields: To create a bar chart, you must drag and drop at least one field onto the Columns shelf and one field onto the Rows shelf. For this example, we will use the “Region” field for the Columns shelf and the “Sales” field for the Rows shelf.
5. Format your visualization: Once you have created your visualization, you can format it to make it more appealing and informative. For example, you can add labels and tooltips, change the color palette, and adjust the size and position of the chart.
6. Save and share: Finally, you can save your visualization by clicking on the “Save” button in the toolbar or by selecting File > Save from the menu. You can also share your visualization with others by publishing it to Tableau Server or Tableau Online.

Also you can find many training videos at YouTube, I recommended this simple series of videos: 

If you can go for more in-depth Tableau training, you can go to Linkedin Learning,*  and for a minimal fee, you can get a full training course with a certificate at the end of the course. 

If you are a marketer or planning to start your career in this area, It is essential to understand the basic concept of data analytics and how to interpret it; knowing how to use software like Tableau can give you the tools you need to succeed in your career.