MODULE 5

Data visualization: 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. Data visualization is
crucial in business intelligence (BI) as it helps to present complex information in a visually appealing and
easily understandable manner. Some common examples of data visualization in business intelligence are
Bar Charts and Column Charts, Line Charts, Pie Charts, Heat Maps, Scatter Plots, Dashboard, etc.

What are the advantages and disadvantages of data visualization?

Advantages: Something as simple as presenting data in graphic format may seem to have no downsides.
But sometimes data can be misrepresented or misinterpreted when placed in the wrong style of data
visualization. When choosing to create a data visualization, it’s best to keep both the advantages and
disadvantages in mind. Some other advantages of data visualization include:
 Easily sharing information.
 Interactively explore opportunities.
 Visualize patterns and relationships.
Disadvantages: While there are many advantages, some of the disadvantages may seem less obvious. For
example, when viewing a visualization with many different datapoints, it’s easy to make an inaccurate
assumption. Or sometimes the visualization is just designed wrong so that it’s biased or confusing. Some
other disadvantages include:
 Biased or inaccurate information.
 Correlation doesn’t always mean causation.
 Core messages can get lost in translation.

Why data visualization is important?

Data visualization plays a crucial role in business intelligence by transforming complex data into easily
understandable visual formats like charts, graphs, dashboards, and maps. Here are some key reasons why
data visualization is important in the context of business intelligence:
 Enhanced Understanding: Visual representations of data make it easier for stakeholders to
comprehend complex information. Visuals enable users to quickly grasp trends, patterns, and outliers
that might not be as apparent in raw data or text-based reports.
 Faster Decision-Making: Clear and intuitive data visualizations empower decision-makers to make
informed choices based on insights derived from the data. Well-designed visuals can highlight critical
information, aiding in faster and more accurate decision-making.
 Identifying Trends and Patterns: Visualizations help in identifying trends, correlations, and patterns
within the data that might not be evident in tables or textual reports. These insights can lead to
strategic business decisions, allowing companies to capitalize on opportunities or mitigate risks.
 Effective Communication: Visualizations serve as a universal language that can communicate complex
ideas and findings across different departments and hierarchical levels within an organization. They
facilitate better communication and collaboration among teams by presenting information in a more
accessible format.
 Real-Time Monitoring: Dashboards and real-time visualizations allow businesses to monitor key
performance indicators (KPIs) and metrics continuously. This helps in keeping track of changes and
reacting promptly to emerging trends or issues.
 Storytelling with Data: Visualization enables analysts to tell compelling stories with data. By creating
narratives through visuals, they can convey insights, trends, and the implications of the data in a more
engaging and persuasive manner.
 Discovery of Insights: Exploratory data visualization tools enable users to interact with data
dynamically. This interactivity allows for deeper exploration and discovery of hidden insights within the
dataset.
 Increased Engagement: Visualizations are more engaging and memorable than raw data or lengthy
reports. They can capture attention and keep stakeholders engaged, ensuring that important
information is understood and retained.
 Spotting Anomalies and Outliers: Visualizations help in identifying anomalies or outliers within the
data, which might indicate potential problems or opportunities that require further investigation.
 Driving Innovation: By leveraging data visualization, businesses can foster a data-driven culture that
encourages innovation and creativity. Visualizations often inspire new ideas and perspectives by
presenting information in novel ways.

What is the Purpose of Data Visualization?

The purpose of data visualization is pretty clear. It is to make sense of the data and use the information for
the organization’s benefits. That said, data is complicated, and it gains more value as and when it gets
visualized. Without visualization, it is challenging to quickly communicate the data findings and identify
patterns to pull insights and interact with the data seamlessly. Data scientists can find patterns or errors
without visualization. However, it is crucial to communicate data findings and identify critical information
from them. And for this, interactive data visualization tools make all the difference.
A relevant and recent example is the ongoing pandemic. Yes, data scientists can look into the data
and gain insights. But data visualization is assisting experts in staying informed and calm with such an
abundance of data. Data visualization strengthens the impact of messaging for your audiences and presents
the data analysis results in the most persuasive manner. It unifies the messaging systems across all the
groups and fields within the organization.
Visualization lets you comprehend vast amounts of data at a glance and in a better way. It helps to
understand the data better to measure its impact on the business and communicates the insight visually to
internal and external audiences. Decisions can’t be made in a vacuum. Available data and insights enable
decision-makers to aid decision analysis. Unbiased data without inaccuracies allows access to the right kind
of information and visualization to represent that information and keep it relevant.

Responsibilities of BI analyst:
 Provide planning and reporting solutions to ensure clients reporting needs are aligned to their business
requirements.
 Perform business intelligence analysis by working with business units to determine, capture, and
analyze business process and information requirements.
 Produce flow diagrams and process documentation; determine required data sources and element
definitions; collect metadata; help identify and connect business rules; and facilitate business question
development as well as draft reporting requirements.
 Define the solution architecture, design and configuration/development of extractors, staging objects,
cubes, views and queries.
 Clarify the master data set up, configuration and integration strategies to develop tightly integrated
solutions.
 Use BI tools to develop reusable objects (facts, attributes, metrics, filters, hierarchies etc.) for
information products including reports, documents, dashboards and scorecards.
 Identify data quality gaps and develops a plan to close data quality gaps.
 Write system documentation, procedures, and product descriptions.
 Conduct performance tuning and provide post-implementation support.

Types of basic and composite chart

Charts are an essential part of working with data, as they are a way to condense large amounts of data into
an easy-to-understand format. Visualizations of data can bring out insights to someone looking at the data
for the first time, as well as convey findings to others who won’t see the raw data. There are countless
chart types out there, each with different use cases. Often, the most difficult part of creating a data
visualization is figuring out which chart type is best for the task at hand.
In the realm of business intelligence (BI), various basic and composite charts are commonly used to
visually represent data, trends, and insights. Here are some types of basic and composite charts frequently
utilized in BI:

Basic Charts:
Bar Chart: Represents data using rectangular

bars of varying lengths. Used to compare
quantities across different categories. In a bar
chart, values are indicated by the length of
bars, each of which corresponds with a
measured group. Bar charts can be oriented
vertically or horizontally; vertical bar charts
are sometimes called column charts.
Horizontal bar charts are a good option when
you have a lot of bars to plot, or the labels on
them require additional space to be legible.

 Line Chart: Displays data as a series of data

points connected by straight lines. Ideal for
showing trends over a period. Line charts show
changes in value across continuous
measurements, such as those made over time.
Movement of the line up or down helps bring
out positive and negative changes, respectively.
It can also expose overall trends, to help the
reader make predictions or projections for
future outcomes. Multiple line charts can also
give rise to other related charts like the sparkline or ridgeline plot.

 Pie Chart: Divides a circle into slices to

represent the proportion of parts to a whole.
Often used to show percentages or
proportions. Pie charts are useful for
organizing data to show the size of
components relative to the whole. They are
especially good at showing percentage or
proportional data.

 Area Chart: Similar to a line chart but with

the area below the line filled with colors.
Useful for visualizing trends over time and
comparing multiple data sets. Area
charts emphasize the magnitude of change
over time, and can be used to draw attention
to the total value across a trend. For example, data that represents profit over time can
be plotted in an area chart to emphasize the total profit.

 Scatter Plot: Displays individual data points

as dots on a two-dimensional graph. Useful
for showing the relationship between two
variables. A scatter plot displays values on
two numeric variables using points
positioned on two axes: one for each
variable. Scatter plots are a versatile
demonstration of the relationship between
the plotted variables—whether that
correlation is strong or weak, positive or negative, linear or non-linear. Scatter plots are
also great for identifying outlier points and possible gaps in the data.

 Histogram: Displays the distribution of a

continuous dataset. Bars represent the
frequency of data within specific ranges. A
histogram is a statistical tool that shows the
distribution of values in a dataset. It's a
useful tool for identifying patterns, outliers,
and groups in large datasets. Histograms can
also be used to answer business questions.

 Box plot: A box plot uses boxes and

whiskers to summarize the distribution of
values within measured groups. The
positions of the box and whisker ends show
the regions where the majority of the data
lies. We most commonly see box plots when
we have multiple groups to compare to one
another; other charts with more detail are
preferred when we have only one group to
plot.

 Gantt Chart: Shows project schedules,

timelines, and tasks. It illustrates the start
and finish dates of project elements.
Gantt chart is often used in project
 management as one of the most popular and useful ways of showing activities (tasks or
events) displayed against time.

Composite Charts:
 Combo Chart: The combination chart, also
known as a combo chart, is a type of
visualization used to compare data in a few
varying categories over a period. It uses
several lines/bars, each representing an
individual category. Combination charts are
usually used to convey distinctions between
different data sets. For example, you may
show sum of profit as bars with a line across
the bars showing sum of sales. You can also use combination charts to show multiple levels
of detail in the same view.

 Waterfall Chart: Illustrates how an initial value

is affected positively or negatively by a series of
intermediate values, leading to a final value.
Waterfall Charts help users keep track of
positive and negative values over time and how
they made a total value. The most common use
case of the Tableau Waterfall Chart is for
analyzing Sales data.

 Stacked Chart: Stacked bar/column chart is

used to show comparison between categories
of data, but with ability to break down and
compare parts of whole. Each bar represents
whole with segments of the bar representing
different parts of the whole. Displays multiple
datasets stacked on top of one another to show
their contribution to the total.

 Spider/Radar Chart: A radar or spider or web chart is a

two-dimensional chart type designed to plot one or
more series of values over multiple quantitative
variables. It has several downsides and should be used
with care. Displays multivariate data in the form of a
 two-dimensional chart. Each variable has its axis, and the data points are connected to form a shape
resembling a spider web.

 Heatmap: Represents data values in a matrix using

colors. Useful for visualizing the magnitude of data
points within a dataset. A heatmap (aka heat
map) depicts values for a main variable of interest
across two axis variables as a grid of coloured
squares. The axis variables are divided into ranges
like a bar chart or histogram, and each cell's colors
indicates the value of the main variable in the
corresponding cell range.

 Pareto Chart: A Pareto chart in Tableau is a

combination chart with two axes. The primary axis
has bars that show raw quantities for each
dimension, usually in descending order. The
secondary axis has a line graph that shows the
cumulative total in percentage format. Combines
both bar and line graphs. It arranges bars in
descending order to depict the cumulative total,
while a line graph shows the cumulative percentage.

 Bubble Chart: A bubble chart in Tableau is a

visualization that can show comparisons between
members of a field. Bubble charts can be useful for
showing high-level comparisons. However, it can be
difficult to make visual comparisons when bubbles are
close in size or are not placed next to the category or
member in question. Displays data using bubbles or
spheres. The position and size of the bubbles represent
multiple dimensions of the data.

DASHBOARDS: Dashboards are visual tools that consolidate and display key information, metrics, or data
points from various sources into a single interface. They offer a quick, easy-to-understand overview of
performance, trends, or insights within a specific area or across multiple areas of interest.

Characteristics and uses of dashboards:

 Data Visualization: Dashboards typically use charts, graphs, tables, and other visual elements to
represent data in a comprehensible format. This helps users quickly grasp information and make
informed decisions.
 Real-Time or Periodic Updates: Dashboards can provide real-time or periodically updated information,
depending on the data source and purpose. Real-time dashboards offer immediate insights, while
periodic updates may be suitable for analyzing trends over time.
 Customization and Interactivity: Users often have the ability to customize dashboards by selecting
specific metrics, adjusting time frames, or filtering data according to their preferences. Interactive
elements allow users to explore data in-depth.
 Multiple Data Sources: Dashboards can pull data from various sources such as databases,
spreadsheets, APIs, or software applications. They integrate information from disparate sources into a
single, unified view.
 Performance Monitoring and Decision Making: Dashboards are used across different industries and
functions (e.g., business, finance, marketing, healthcare) to monitor performance indicators, track
goals, and aid in decision-making processes.
 Different Types of Dashboards: Dashboards can vary in complexity and purpose. They could be
operational, strategic, analytical, or tactical, catering to different levels of an organization and serving
distinct objectives.
 Mobile Accessibility: Many modern dashboards are designed to be responsive and accessible on
various devices, including smartphones and tablets, allowing users to access critical information on the
go.
 Security and Permissions: Depending on the nature of the data, dashboards often incorporate security
measures and permission settings to ensure that only authorized individuals can access sensitive
information.

Dashboard Design: Dashboards play a crucial role in data-driven decision-making by presenting complex
information in a digestible and actionable format, helping businesses and individuals make informed
choices and track progress efficiently.
Designing a dashboard in business intelligence involves creating a visual representation of key
performance indicators (KPIs), metrics, and data that allows users to monitor, analyze, and make informed
decisions. Here are some essential considerations and best practices for designing effective BI dashboards:
 Define Objectives and Audience:
 Understand the purpose of the dashboard (e.g., monitoring sales, tracking marketing
performance, etc.).
 Identify the target audience and their specific needs (executives, analysts, operational teams).
 Select Relevant Metrics:
 Choose KPIs and metrics aligned with business goals.
 Prioritize essential data that provides actionable insights.
 Keep it Simple and Clear:
 Avoid clutter by focusing on displaying the most critical information.
 Use clear visualizations (charts, graphs, tables) that are easy to understand at a glance.
 Use Visual Hierarchy:
 Arrange elements based on importance, placing the most critical data prominently.
 Employ colour, size, and position to emphasize key information.
 Ensure Interactivity:
 Incorporate interactive elements like filters, drill-downs, and tooltips for deeper analysis.
 Allow users to customize views based on their needs.
 Consistent Design and Branding:
 Maintain consistency in design elements (colour scheme, fonts, logos) across the dashboard.
 Ensure the design aligns with the organization's branding guidelines.
 Mobile Responsiveness:
  Optimize the dashboard for various devices (desktops, tablets, mobiles) to ensure accessibility
on the go.
 Provide Context and Insights:
 Include brief summaries or annotations to explain data trends or anomalies.
 Add contextual information to help users understand the significance of displayed metrics.
 Test and Iterate:
 Gather feedback from users to refine and improve the dashboard design.
 Continuously iterate based on changing business needs and user requirements.
 Data Security and Compliance:
 Ensure data security protocols are followed to protect sensitive information.
 Comply with relevant regulations (GDPR, HIPAA, etc.) regarding data privacy.
 Performance Optimization:
 Optimize the dashboard's performance to ensure quick loading times, especially with large
datasets.