Everyone is different - people consume and process information in different ways. With visual IQ on the rise, people are less willing to spend time to decipher information, and this is especially the case in business.
One of the most effective ways around this is by transforming difficult-to-read data sets into a visual form. While dense clusters of figures may not make sense to most people across the enterprise, charts and graphs can help to clarify information and convey concepts quickly, making it infinitely more usable.
Tips on creating effective data visualisation
Writing for the Wall Street Journal, Director of Deloitte Consulting LLP David Steier concisely sums up our interactions with visual imagery. He notes that human brains have evolved to understand shapes and movement, while our other senses are guided towards exploration and making connections in our surroundings.
According to Steier, this evolution is relevant to the field of business intelligence, as many organisationsstruggle with the complexity of data sets, and can better empower stakeholders by considering a more sensory strategy with communication.
The goal of taking a visual approach to your data analytics is to simplify all of your collected information into a much more digestible form, and that same approach should be continued when it comes to producing your visualisations. With that in mind, it's important to narrow down the information you want to display to a limited number of key performance indicators (KPIs) - after all, you want to reduce clutter, not add to it.
Any irrelevant details - in the context of the specific information you are trying to convey - should be stripped away in favour of making the most valuable insight more prominent. Simple elements like colours can also make a big difference. The more aspects you include in your visualisations, the more colours you will likely need to use, which can make it difficult for key data to stand out.
Data visualisation with Qlik Sense
Qlik Sense was designed to make unlocking the value of your enterprise data as easy as possible, allowing you to disseminate insight to all levels of the business. Qlik Sense has a simple drag-and-drop interface and smart visualisations that make it easy to convey meaning from your data.
Each chart is fully interactive, one click from summarised to transactional level detail, while visualisations dynamically update to changes made anywhere in the dashboard. Each chart is also a responsive design, automatically adjusting to screen size and mobile touch. With Qlik, pictures are suddenly worth more than 1,000 words
