Presentation and Visualization Methods

Data visualization is the method of consolidating data into one collective, illustrative graphic. Traditionally, data visualization has been used for quantitative work (info-graphics are a popular example) but ways to represent qualitative work have shown to be equally as powerful.

US Population

Everyday, our attention is being fought for. Data visualization excels in capturing a viewer’s attention and holding it through storytelling. It addresses a complex problem that could be easily looked over, and simplifies it using design. Naturally, a new market for business has emerged. Companies have recognized the value in representing research data in an innovative way and have built a platform to connect designers, data experts, and marketing managers with businesses who want to share their research findings. By taking their data and turning it into visual content, users are more likely to engage with and share it.

For this Blog, I will discuss data presentation and visualization methods for three very important business lines.

• Financial Accounting
• Customer Relations Management
• Health Care Industry

Financial Accounting

This involves the preparation of financial statements available for public consumption. Stockholders, suppliers, banks, employees, government agencies, business owners, and other stakeholders are examples of people interested in receiving such information for decision making purposes.

Presenting financial accounts information

1. Balance and Income statement sheet : This is the most basic and common representation of a company's financial information. However, its not suitable for all audiences
2. Graphs: Bar charts and Line charts are another common way to represent the financial statements. It gives a better picture to folks are do not understand the financial lingo very well.
3. Recommendation: Finding the a right visual representation for all audiences is a difficult task in this line of business. I found an interesting visualization, which is very intuitive in sharing this kind of information.

Balance Sheet for 10 years at PBoC

Customer Relations Management

Customer relationship management (CRM) is a system for managing a company's interactions with current and future customers. Users for this information make decisions at all levels.

Presenting CRM information:

1. Excel Sheet: Using conditional formatting in excel is one of the basic ways of representing CRM information.
2. Bar Charts: CRM dashboards usually contain several bar charts displaying the information about various orders, customers, sales calls , return, etc. related data.
3. Recommendation: Using an combination of visuals which interactively represent the data. Example(given below): use a map to allow users to select a location and then show the information using a combination of pie, donut, bar and cone graphs.

Sales Data using Slick data visuals

Health Care Industry

The healthcare industry is an aggregation of sectors within the economic system that provides goods and services to treat patients with curative, preventive, rehabilitative, and palliative care. Everyone on this planet is interested in this data!

Presenting Healthcare information:

1. Radar graphs: These are pretty simple ways to represent information in health care industry.
2. Trend lines: This gives us ability to display trends, growth and decline information.
3. Recommendation: Using a map based interactive representation with drill down facility is one of the best ways for representation of visual data on Healthcare,

Health care costs by State in US

Conclusion: Know your audience and present the information to them in the best possible way for them to understand. Visualization should be Intuitive, Simple, Appealing and Interactive.

References:
http://bridgeable.com/the-importance-of-data-visualization/
http://content.time.com/time/interactive/0,31813,1549966,00.html
www.wikipedia.com
http://jpkoning.blogspot.com/2012/11/data-visualization-peoples-bank-of.html
http://www.slickdata.com/sales/
http://community.copypress.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/HealthcareMap_Final5.png