How to Use Data Visualization Tools and Techniques for Business

The ever-growing volume of data and its importance for business make data visualization an essential part of business strategy for many companies. In this article, we review major data visualization instruments and name the key factors that influence the choice of visualization techniques and tools. You will learn about the most widely used tools for data visualization and get a few expert tips on how to combine data visualizations into effective dashboards. We will also show how the adoption of these tools can affect business outcomes and give several real-world examples from our experience.

What determines data visualization choices

Visualization is the first step to make sense of data. To translate and present complex data and relations in a simple way, data analysts use different methods of data visualization — charts, diagrams, maps, etc. Choosing the right technique and its setup is often the only way to make data understandable. Vice versa, poorly selected tactics won’t let you unlock the full potential of data or even make it irrelevant.

5 factors that impact your choice of data visualization methods and techniques:

1. Audience. It’s important to adjust data representation to the specific target audience. For example, fitness mobile app users who browse through their progress would prefer easy-to-read uncomplicated visualizations on their phones. On the other hand, if data insights are intended for researchers, specialists and C-level decision-makers who regularly work with data, you can and often have to go beyond simple charts.
2. Content. The type of data you are dealing with will determine the tactics. For example, if it’s time-series metrics, you will use line charts to show the dynamics in many cases. To show the relationship between two elements, scatter plots are often used. In turn, bar charts work well for comparative analysis.
3. Context. You can use different data visualization approaches and read data depending on the context. To emphasize a certain figure, for example, significant profit growth, you can use the shades of one color on the chart and highlight the highest value with the brightest one. On the contrary, to differentiate elements, you can use contrast colors.
4. Dynamics. There are various types of data, and each type has a different rate of change. For example, financial results can be measured monthly or yearly, while time series and tracking data are changing constantly. Depending on the rate of change, you may consider dynamic representation (steaming) or static data visualization techniques in data mining.
5. Purpose. The goal of data visualization affects the way it is implemented. In order to make a complex analysis, visualizations are compiled into dynamic and controllable dashboards equipped with different tools for visual data analytics (comparison, formatting, filtering, etc.). However, dashboards are not necessary to show a single or occasional data insight.

Are you looking for a skillful team to create effective and responsive data visualization and dashboards to deliver important insights for your business? Contact our team and tell us about your needs and requirements. Our analysts, developers and data scientists have profound experience in working with different types of data and will find a way to help you get the most of your data assets.

Also in this category: Qlik Sense is a data intelligence platform with unique capabilities and features. It provides highly interactive visualizations and dashboards that enable fast insight discovery. Every time a user clicks on an event or metric, the platform refines the context on the spot to show unique dependencies and correlations.

Qlik stands out for lightning-fast calculations and AI technologies in the core analytics functions. These are just the major tools and techniques of data visualization. All the mentioned platforms and services are evolving very fast and introduce new features and capabilities to keep up with the market needs. Especially when it comes to the growing pace of big data and Internet of Things development.

Tips to create efficient data dashboards

Choosing the right data visualization techniques and tools is the key point to figure out when working with data. However, it is not the only one. Often visualizations are combined into dashboards to provide analysts, management and other users with complete information on a subject.

Dashboards have different functions (show changes in conditions, help track activity and location in real-time, provide remote monitoring and control of a system, etc.) and specifics (dynamic vs. static, historical vs. real-time, KPI/goals dashboards, etc.) that determine their design and features. However, there are several important factors to consider when you create a data dashboard of any type or purpose:

Tip 1. Consistency

Consistency is the key to fluency and fast dashboard navigation. It’s important to stick to specific color-coding, fonts, styles, and visualization elements when showing the same metrics across different dashboards.

Tip 2. The right choice of visualizations

No visualization is one-size-fits-all, even a line chart. It’s crucial to choose the right visualization technique for each type of data on a dashboard to ensure its usability and avoid confusion or even misinterpretation. Check the examples in this article that support this point.

Tip 3. Personalization

Not only does the audience impact the choice of individual visualizations but also determines how to create a data analysis dashboard. It’s essential to keep the goals of different end-users in mind when deciding what visualizations and data should be included in a dashboard. After all, important information for one user can be unessential or even meaningless for others.

Example: A health tracking app used by patients and doctors should have two personalized dashboards. The patient’s dashboard can include basic health data such as blood pressure, medication intake, activity tracking, while the doctor’s dashboard can combine this data with test results, EHR notes and other medical information to provide a more comprehensive picture of the patient’s condition.

Tip 4. Device constraints

Screen size is an important parameter when we are talking about multifunctional dashboards that are supposed to be used on different devices. A dashboard on a small mobile screen should provide no less value than a dashboard on a desktop screen. For this purpose, designers should consider responsiveness and provide tools and features to easily manipulate dashboards on limited smartphone screens — quickly navigate between views, drill data, compile custom reports, etc. This point is particularly important when creating UX/UI design for IoT apps for they are usually data-heavy.

Tip 5. Value

A dashboard should provide value the moment the user accesses it. However, it does not necessarily mean that all the data should be stuffed into screen one. On the contrary, visualizations should be carefully selected, grouped and aligned on every screen to immediately answer all important questions and suggest ways to further explore the data.

Tip 6. Testing

Whether you create an automated data visualization dashboard using tools like Grafana or design a custom dashboard for your system, it’s important to test your visualizations on different volumes of data and in different conditions before going live. In many cases, dashboards are developed based on test data. Once released, dashboards show real data which can be quite different from the test data. As a result, these dashboards do not look and behave as intended. Testing in different conditions helps bridge this gap and avoid inconsistency.

Examples of data visualization: real stories from our experience

We have worked on a range of data visualization and analytics projects for cleantech, logistics, healthcare, retail and IT companies and successfully integrated custom data solutions into their operations. Here are a few use cases that show different approaches to data visualization and their effect on business outcomes.

Efficient performance monitoring helps a printing company handle a 200% traffic increase with a 0% slowdown

Our long-standing client, one of the leading printing companies in the U.S., was dealing with a traffic upsurge challenge every holiday season. They needed an effective monitoring and control solution to avoid website slowdown or performance decrease.

Our dedicated team has been working with the lab’s tech infrastructure for a decade. To address the challenge, we developed a custom data analytics and visualization tool based on the combination of Elastic Stack solutions. It collects and analyzes real-time performance data – website traffic, backend load, the quantity and status of submitted orders, printing status and queue. The system then visualizes data for real-time monitoring, registers failed operations and sends alerts to the support team if any problem is spotted. From the moment this tool was integrated into the lab’s operations, the company could better manage growing traffic and go through intensive seasonal sales without slowdown or lost orders. Since then, we have upgraded the monitoring system and scaled the client’s entire infrastructure to better address the constantly growing load (microservices development services to enhance scalability and resilience, migration to modern .NET technologies, adoption of cloud and data services, etc.)

Monitor IT infrastructure in real-time to improve security and employee performance

A Finnish tech company developed a SaaS product for real-time IT infrastructure monitoring. The system was originally focused on Windows products, and we were asked to scale it up for the macOS platform. We developed a multifunctional monitoring system to track performance and provide real-time data on the health and security of the customers’ IT infrastructures. The system collects data on registered software and hardware performance, sends it to the cloud-based backend for analysis, and provides customers with visualized insights on dashboards and reports. When integrated into the company’s operations, the system helps improve employee productivity and mitigate possible security and performance risks. It is an effective tool for IT asset tracking and management. These are a few examples that demonstrate how effective data visualization systems and tools affect business operations and help companies deal with major performance challenges.

Leverage powerful data visualization tools with Digiteum

If you are looking for skilled tech experts to help you design and create a data visualization system for your business, consult on the use of professional data visualization tools, and integrate them into your decision-making process, we can help. We work with a wide range of data visualization and analytics platforms (ELK Stack and Kibana, Grafana, Qlik, Sisense, Power BI, Tableau, etc.) and apply a range of techniques, including popular data visualization techniques in Machine Learning, IoT and big data. Our designers, software and data engineers create stunning visualizations and data tools for such companies as Oxford Languages, Printique, Origin Digital, feed.fm, and Diaceutics. We can help you:

• Select, configure, and integrate the right data visualization and analytics tools according to your business needs and scale.
• Design and build custom dashboards and add powerful features for data sorting, analysis, and reporting.
• Integrate data visualization techniques in business analytics that best fit your requirements and BI goals.
• Optimize time to insight and cut the cost of BI with robust data management and analytics tools.
• Design, build, and support your entire data infrastructure and operations using modern cloud-based solutions.

Check our big data services to learn how we can help you turn your data into a source of income and growth… without losing track of your costs.

Summary

In this article, we answered the most common questions about platforms, tools and methods of data visualization: What are data visualization techniques and tools? How to use different visualization tools to unlock the power of data? How to build effective data dashboards? You can use this foundational knowledge to start working with your data and select tools that will help you extract real value from your assets. If you need help to find the right data tools for your specific business needs, contact our team.

This post was originally published on August 10, 2018 and updated on September 16, 2021 and September 29, 2023.