“Data visualization is the language of decision-making. Good charts effectively convey information. Great charts enable, inform, and improve decision making.”
— Dante Vitagliano.

The modern world requires a data-driven approach for decision-making and staying competitive. Therefore, data scientists around the world make sure that they gather data from a centralized, standardized, and high-quality source. But still, most of the data gathered by businesses over time remains cluttered and unstructured.

So, how can data be used for maximum organizational efficiency? Is having accurate data enough to make visuals more engaging?

The answers to all these questions lie in data visualization. Let’s discuss them in detail.

A lot of business owners make most common data visualization mistakes without evening realizing it. Result? Affecting business decisions and uncluttered business data! As a result, they get fed up struggling with tons of unclutter data to organization and hence look for outsourcing data visualization services.

Do you also find yourself sailing in the same boat? If yes, then this blog can be really helpful to you. It sheds light on the biggest data visualization mistakes that a business owner shouldn’t miss.

So, keep reading...

What happens if data visualization isn’t done effectively?

Well, the answer is simple yet full of complexities. Simple because if done incorrectly, data visualization output can nurture misinformation, and complex because it is prone to human errors and even a small mistake in the process can create difference of opinions leading to bad decision-making. Mistakes like failure to spot trends, patterns, and inability to make correlations can cost your business valuable time and money.

In this blog, we have highlighted the benefits of accurate data visualization and some common mistakes that businesses make while visualizing their data. So, let's get started.

“If you torture the data long enough, it will tell you anything.”
- John W. Tukey

How data visualization helps businesses succeed - Benefits highlighted!

Data visualization has many advantages for different teams within the organization as they all use the same data in one way or the other. It plays a very important role in modifying data and delivering data-driven insights across the organization.

Some other benefits of data visualization include:

1. Faster decision-making

In this fast-paced world, slower decision-making won’t work.  In that case, data visualization acts as the savior. It helps businesses speed-up the decision-making process by enabling stakeholders to take insights briefly.

2. Trend identification

With data visualization, you can clearly identify trends and patterns in datasets. It will help you to identify diverse business opportunities or issues that need to be addressed as soon as possible.

3. Increased engagement

Before the data visualization process came into the picture, businesses used to create standard spreadsheets and tables to showcase their data, which were often disengaging and chaotic. But, with the most advanced data visualization tools and practices, businesses can not only capture user attention but can also drive engagement.

4. Data accessibility and usability

Not everyone is familiar with technical jargons and complex data sets. Therefore, data visualization process helps in creating visually appealing and easy to understand infographics or dashboards. As a result, data accessibility and usability become much easier to understand.

5. Enhanced understanding

By simplifying complex information, businesses can educate and train their entire staff and can help other teams make informed data-driven decisions.

Common data visualization mistakes and how to avoid them

If you are new to data visualization and planning to create attractive reports for your unstructured datasets, you are bound to make some mistakes. Therefore, for the remainder of this blog, we will take a deeper look at the most common data visualization mistakes business owners make while putting together their data dashboards. We will also discuss the ways to avoid them.

1. Deceiving color contrast

While colors make everything look beautiful, excessive or inappropriate coloring can lead to misinformation and confusion. Therefore, it is important to maintain the color contrast and stick to a limited number of unique colors.

Impact

• The user might get confused with the value or percentage in the dashboard due to flashy coloring.
• When there are too many colors in the visualization, it might take much longer for the user to conceive the information.

Solution

• Use hot/cool tone colors to showcase the difference in values; ascending or descending color contrast can portray positive/negative emotions.
• Check and compare color contrast on a greyscale to see whether they are highlighting any difference in values or not.

2. Too much data in a single chart

Adding too much data in a single dashboard certainly adds more value and depth to the visualization, but sometimes it can also overwhelm the user, leading to confusion and misinformation.

Impact

• The user might find it difficult to grasp all the details in the dashboard.
• The user might lose attention due to excessive data.
• Sometimes too much data can slow down the results due to lack of understanding.

Solution

• Always put the required and concise information to make things easy to understand.
• Try not to put all the insights into a single chart. We know sometimes you might need to overload charts with too much information, but multiple visualizations can help with effective communication of data.

3. Biased data selection

Although charts and dashboards play the most important role in disseminating information; title, labels, and description can also form opinions in the user’s mind. Therefore, if written information is biased or portrays different emotion, the user might get confused and have a misleading opinion.

Impact

• Even if your data is 100% accurate and informative, non-contrasting depiction of data can affect user interpretation of the same data.

Solution

• Use written description only when you need to clarify the data showcased in the dashboard.
• Make sure that the title and description of the chart are aligned together and convey the same meaning without any bias.

4. Incorrect visualization methods

While choosing the visualization method, it is very important to select charts that are most appropriate to display your data. As different charts are used to deliver different information, inaccurate or inconsistent charts can lead to ineffective data communication.

Impact

• Incorrect visualization methods can mislead and confuse the user, resulting in ineffective decision-making.

Solution

• If you want to choose appropriate charts for your data, you first need to identify the insights your data is trying to convey. Once you do that, you are all set to start working on the visualization process.

The table below can help you select the best chart for your data:

5.Not every data need visualization

Only you know the relevancy and value of your data. Therefore, you have to decide what data needs to be visualized and what data does not. Sometimes, data might be important, but it may not be necessary to display that information in a data visualization presentation.

Impact

• Too much irrelevant or unnecessary data can slow down your progress and might also confuse users. Sometimes, showing excess data in a chart or graph might not be necessary.

Solution

• You need to understand the importance of the available data.
• Instead of just throwing facts on a slide deck, you should present your data visualizations through a compelling narrative.

Best practices for effective data visualization

Effective data visualization best practices are required to let your business thrive in this ever-evolving digital world. By utilizing some proven strategies and practices, you can create intuitive and interesting data visualization presentations, so that the data is digested quicker and easier, and the intended messages come through clearly.

Read the table below to learn more about the best practices in data visualization:

Enhance business decisions with effective data visualization

After learning about the common mistakes that people make in the data visualization process, it better to keep an open eye while creating data visualization for businesses.

At FBSPL, our data visualization experts prioritize clarity, accuracy, and insight in every chart and graph, ensuring your decisions are informed and impactful. We provide data visualization solutions like interactive reports, geospatial mapping, drill-down feature, data modeling, data integration, etc.  Therefore, outsource data visualization services to us and perceive data in a more visually appealing and interactive manner.

Remember, the accurate and consistent data visualization not only tells a story but also empowers decision-making. Contact us to learn more about our data visualization services!