1.

Data Visualization Introduction

Data visualization is the graphical representation of information and data. By using visual
elements like charts, graphs, and maps, data visualization tools provide an accessible way to
see and understand trends, outliers, and patterns in data. Additionally, it provides an excellent
way for employees or business owners to present data to non-technical audiences without
confusion.
In the world of Big Data, data visualization tools and technologies are essential to analyze
massive amounts of information and make data-driven decisions.
Types of Data Visualization

 Chart: Information presented in a tabular, graphical form with data displayed along
two axes. Can be in the form of a graph, diagram, or map. Learn more.
 Table: A set of figures displayed in rows and columns. Learn more.
 Graph: A diagram of points, lines, segments, curves, or areas that represents certain
variables in comparison to each other, usually along two axes at a right angle.
 Geospatial: A visualization that shows data in map form using different shapes and
colors to show the relationship between pieces of data and specific locations. Learn
more.
 Infographic: A combination of visuals and words that represent data. Usually uses
charts or diagrams.
 Dashboards: A collection of visualizations and data displayed in one place to help
with analyzing and presenting data. Learn more.

2. Data for Visualization

What are the main types of data visualization?
The main types of data visualization include charts, graphs and maps in the form of line
charts, bar graphs, tree charts, dual-axis charts, mind maps, funnel charts and heatmaps.
While the main types of data visualization each offer a different approach to organizing large
quantities of complex information into visuals, all of them are designed to make large
datasets easier to present, understand and interpret.
3.Data Types

 The data type to be visualized

o One-dimensional data, such as temporal (time-series) data
o Two-dimensional data, such as geographical maps
o Multi-dimensional data, such as relational tables
o Text and hypertext, such as news articles and Web documents
o Hierarchies and graphs, such as telephone caUs and Web documents
 o Algorithms and software, such as debugging operations

Types of data visualization

There are two basic types of data visualization: static and interactive.

Static visualizations: are something like an infographic, a single keyhole view of a

particular data story.

Interactive visualizations: allow you to customize your story by moving a slider or clicking
a button to enable various views of the dataset.

Examples of the main types of data visualization include:

Bar graph: also called a column graph, these types of data visualization offer numerical
values expressed in bars or rectangles of equal width. Bar graphs are used to expose large
changes over time and easily summarize large data sets.

Line charts: these types of data visualization involve connecting plotted data points with
lines to show trends over time and compare different data points. Line charts are useful
whenever you’re continuously tracking data and need to visually demonstrate trends detected
in large datasets over the course of a marketing campaign.
Dual-axis charts: these types of data visualization are used to show comparisons and offer
an easy way to see the relationships or trends between datasets. Dual-axis charts combine
visual elements such as those of a bar graph and line chart to compare sets of data accurately,
efficiently and without needing to use two separate data visualizations to show trends or draw
connections.

4.Data Encoding
What do you mean by data encoding?
Encoding is the process of converting data into a format required for a number of information
processing needs, including: Program compiling and execution. Data transmission, storage
and compression/decompression. Application data processing, such as file conversion.

5.Retinal Variables

Retinal variables

Visual implantations need retinal variables to be encoded, and retinal variables take visual
parameters. For example, a point visual implantation can be encoded using the shape of a
hollow circle and the colour blue. A line can be encoded using a solid pattern of thick size
and green color. An area can be encoded using a 20% transparent red colour and thin line
borders.

Bertin (1967) describes visual implantations as dimensionless elements with underlying

coordinates that necessitate the encoding of retinal variables in order to become visually
informative. He identifies six fundamental retinal variables:

1. Colour hue (e.g. blue, green, magenta).

2. Colour value (lightness vs. darkness).
3. Size (e.g. large, small, thick, thin).
4. Shape (e.g. circle, rectangle, diamond).
5. Orientation (e.g. angle, degrees).
6. Texture (e.g. dashed lines, polka dots).
The eye is independently sensitive to these retinal variables, which means that more than one
retinal variables can be deployed at the same time in order to encode different variation in the
data.

The following is a figure from Bertin (1967) describing the implementation of retinal
variables in conjunction with visual implantations:

Retinal variables encode visual implantations (points, lines, areas) and can be used to
represent differences (≠), similarities (≡), a quantified order (Q), or a qualitative order (O).
6.Mapping Variables to Encodings

One-Hot Encoding :

In One-Hot Encoding, each category of any categorical variable gets a new variable. It maps
each category with binary numbers (0 or 1). This type of encoding is used when the data is
nominal. Newly created binary features can be considered dummy variables. After one hot
encoding, the number of dummy variables depends on the number of categories presented in
the data.

The way to achieve this in python is illustrated below.

df=pd.DataFrame({'name':['rahul','ashok','ankit','aditya','yash','vipin','amit']})

encoder=ce.OneHotEncoder(cols='name',handle_unknown='return_nan',return_df=True,use_
cat_names=True)

#Original Data
print(df)

#Fit and transform Data

df_encoded = encoder.fit_transform(df)
print(df_encoded)
Output:

Here in the above output, we can see dummy variables for every category.

8.Visual Encodings

The visual encoding is the way in which data is mapped into visual structures, upon which we
build the images on a screen.
There are two types of visual encoding variables: planar and retinal. Humans are sensitive
to the retinal variables. They easily differentiate between various colors, shapes, sizes and
other properties. Retinal variables were introduced by Bertin (→) about 40 years ago, and this
concept has become quite popular recently. While there’s some critique about the
effectiveness of retinal variables (→), most specialists find them useful.
The goal of this article is to provide an engaging introduction to visual encoding, and to give
some hands-on examples of how it helps to present data in a meaningful way.

Data types
We’ll start with some complex things: data types (→). There are three basic types of data:
something you can count, something you can order and something you can just differentiate.
As often is the case, these types get down to three un-intuitive terms:
Quantitative
Anything that has exact numbers.
Forexample,Effortinpoints:0,1,2,3,5,8,13.
Duration in days: 1, 4, 666.
Ordered / Qualitative
Anything that can be compared and ordered.
UserStoryPriority:MustHave,Great,Good,NotSure. Bug Severity: Blocking, Average, Who
Cares.
Categorical
Everything else.
Entitytypes:Bugs,Stories,Features,TestCases.
Fruits: Apples, Oranges, Plums.

Planar and Retinal Variables

OK, we’ve got some data. Now how do we present it? We have several visual encoding
variables.
X and Y
Planar variables are known to everybody. If you’ve studied maths (which I’m sure you’d
have), you’ve been drawing graphs across the X- and Y-axis. Planar variables work for any
data type. They work great to present any quantitative data. It’s a pity that we have to deal
with the flat screens and just two planar variables. Well, we can try to use Z-axis, but 3D
charts look horrible on screen in 95.8% of cases.
So what should we do then to present three or more variables? We can use the retinal
variables!

Size
We know that size does matter. You can see the difference right away. Small is innocuous,
large is dangerous perhaps. Size is a good visualizer for the quantitative data.

Texture
Texture is less common. You can’t touch it on screen, and it’s usually less catchy than color.
So, in theory texture can be used for soft encoding, but in practice it’s better to pass on it.
Shape
Round circles ○, edgy stars ☆, solid rectangles █. We can easily distinguish dozens of
shapes. They do work well sometimes for the visual encoding of categories.

Orientation

Orientation is tricky.

While we’re able to clearly identify vertical vs. horizontal lines, it is harder to use it properly
for visual encoding.

Color Value

Any color value can be moved over a scale. Greyscale is a good example. While we can’t be
certain that#999 color is lighter than #888, still it’s a helpful technique to visualize the
ordered data.

Color Hue
Red color is alarming. Green color is calm. Blue color is peaceful. Colors are great to
separate categories.
Color in More Detail
Color is the most interesting variable, let’s dig into some details here. There are three
different scales that we can use with color. We’ve already mentioned two of them: the
categorical scale (color hue) and the sequential scale (color value).
Diverging scale is somewhat new. It encodes positive and negative values, e.g. temperatures
in range of -50 to +50 C. It would be a mistake to use any other color scales for that.

There are six primary colors:

The general rule of thumb is that you can use no more than a dozen colors to encode
categories effectively. If there’s more, it’d be hard to differentiate between categories
quickly. These are the most commonly used colors:
“Avoiding catastrophe becomes the first principle in bringing color to information: Above all, do no
harm.”—Tufte

The next obvious question is:

How to Apply the Retinal Variables to Data?

It is quite clear that we can’t use all variables to present any data types. For example, it is
wrong to use color to represent numbers (1, 2, 3). And it is bad to use size to represent
various currencies (€, £ , ¥). Why on Earth should small circles stand for euro, and large
circles for pounds?

Here’s the retinal variables usage summary:

Note that planar variables can be applied to all the data types. Indeed, we can use the X-axis
for categories, ordered variables or numbers.
The Basic Example
OK, now let’s tap on some techniques to visualize real data. Sample data is very simple, we
just want to visualize quantity of items:

Item Type Quantity

Features 3

Bugs 5

User Stories 6

We have just two variables:

Item Types (Categorical) and Items Quantity (well, Quantitative). All the possible choices are based
on the table above:

Item Types Orientation

Color
Shape
Texture
X (or Y)

Item Orientation
Quantity Size
Value
X (or Y)

In theory, you can mix these variables as you wish. I’m going to try four combinations.
Shape + Value

Hmm, looks like a puzzle. Value doesn’t work for the quantitative data, it seems. Let’s try
something else!
Color + Size

Well, slightly better. The color coding works for entity types. For example, in TargetProcess
we’ve got green Features, red Bugs and blue User Stories. Still not very good.
A very simple rule in visualizations is to never map scalar data to circle radii. Humans do
better in comparing relative areas, so if you want to map data to a shape, you have to map it
to it’s area. (→)
Texture + Y

Almost great. But why this legend with texture? Can we just remove it? Yes! Let’s use the X
and Y planar variables.
X+Y

Now we have the best result! It turned out that X+Y works great for a simple data set with
just two variables. So, there’s no need to use retinal variables at all.
Retinal variables should be used if you need to present three or more data sources.

The Four Variables Example

Three is quite trivial, so we’ll take four variables. Say, we have bugs, stories, and tasks and
we want to visualize some properties of these entities:
 Types
 Priority
 Average Effort in Points
 Average Cycle Time in Days (→)
Here is our data:

Type Priority Average Effort Average Cycle Time

Features Must Have 30 40

Features Good 20 40

Features Nice to Have 15 20

Bugs Fix ASAP 2 2

Bugs Fix 2 8

Bugs Fix if Time 5 12

User Must Have 8 10

Stories

User Good 5 7
Stories

User Nice to Have 8 7

Stories

We need to pick four variables. Surely, there’re other choices, but here’s what I’ve selected:

Variable Type Encoding

Entity Type Categorical Color Hue

Priority Ordered Color Value

Average Effort in Points Quantitative X

Average Cycle Time in Days Quantitative Y

Now it’s easy to draw the chart. The important bugs are shown in deep red, the unimportant
ones — in light red. The same pattern applies to features and user stories
What can we say about this chart? Here are some useful observations:
 Bugs are usually are smaller than user stories, and features are the largest entities.
 Important bugs are small and get fixed quickly.
 Important features are the largest, and it takes more time to release them (interesting
information, by the way!).
 Unimportant bugs are the largest, and it takes longer to fix them.
 There’s a good correlation between effort and cycle time: it takes more time to deliver
large entities.
Of course, you can get the same info from the plain table above, but the chart is much more
fun to explore.