From the course: Learning Data Visualization

What is data visualization?

From the course: Learning Data Visualization

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What is data visualization?

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- [Narrator] Data visualization is easy to define. Look at the words data and visualization. So it's data presented in a visual way, simple and clear. Sure, but yeah, it's also vague. But that vagueness means that data visualization is not just charts and graphs it's any visual representation of data. It could be photography, it's people raising their hands. It's marks on a wall. It can be a pile of rocks or even a painting or a sculpture. If the visual helps you understand the data then it's data visualization. Full stop. Now, in this course we'll focus mostly on charts and graphs because that's the technique we use most frequently when sharing data in a company or government or nonprofit setting. But it could be that the best way to communicate some data is not in a typical chart or graph. So I'll be pointing to that here and there as well. Another important idea I want you to think about for a moment is the idea that a chart is not the data. It's a representation of the data. This is subtle, but lean in for a moment. When you look in the mirror, you're not looking at you you're seeing a representation of you. A cartoon is also at representation. One may be more accurate than the other but both can be effective. A chart can be like a mirror image or it can be like a cartoon of the data. Either way, it's not the data itself. So just remember to think about your visuals as being a representation of data whose sole purpose is to be seen and understood to reflect the data to an audience. Why does this subtle distinction matter? Because when you think of the visual as its own unique thing you can allow it to take on a life of its own. It'll help you separate the visual from the underlying data enough to realize that the visual deserves its own time and attention above and beyond the data analysis that got you ready to make visuals for an audience.

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