You might wonder why you’re finding yourself on this page and what is it that you can take away from this little excursion into the world of data visualization.
An easy-to-grasp, introductory talk is given by David McCandless. As one of the famous TED Talks, he talks about the “Beauty of Data Visualization“.
What is Data Visualisation?Why do I need Data Visualisation?What value do I get out of it?
Data visualization makes connections and realtions between certain sets of data visible and, thus, more comprehensible.
To put it in a nutshell, data visualization is “the representation and presentation of data to facilitate understanding” (Kirk 2016: 19). This takes into account all ways transforming data into visual imagery, animated or not.
As a researcher your jobs is to acquire data in order to find proof for your argument, refute assumptions or observe processes. In any of those cases you need to make your hard work accessible and understandable to a broader audience. The easiest way to do that successfully is to create an image, to visualize your data. Processing information visually takes less effort than to understand lists of numbers or find a pattern in large sets of data.
Visualization makes your research efforts intellectually accessible to your audience/ reader and also distinguishes your work from other research projects in the field.
Find more information on the next page: Key Questions.