Regional Kurdistan Government

Council of Ministers
Ministry of High Education and Scientific Research

DATA MINING
Data Visualization

Prepared by: Zhiar Abas

Supervised by: Dr.Maiwan

Faculty of Science - Computer Science

Stage Four

2023 – 2024
 Table of Contents

What is data visualization?

When should you visualize your data?
What are the advantages and disadvantages of data visualization?
Why data visualization is important?
Different types of visualizations
Conclusion
Reference

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What is data visualization?
Data visualization is the graphical representation of information and data. By using visual
elements like charts, graphs, and maps, data visualization tools provide an accessible way
to see and understand trends, outliers, and patterns in data. Additionally, it provides an
excellent way for employees or business owners to present data to non-technical
audiences without confusion.
In the world of Big Data, data visualization tools and technologies are essential to
analyze massive amounts of information and make data-driven decisions.
When should you visualize your data?
Aside from exploratory data visualization which takes place in the early stages, data
visualization usually comprises the final step in the data analysis process. To recap, the
data analysis process can be set out as follows:

 Define the question: What problem are you trying to solve?

 Collect the data: Determine what kind of data you need and where you’ll find it.
 Clean the data: Remove errors, duplicates, outliers, and unwanted data points—
anything that might skew how your data is interpreted.
 Analyze the data: Determine the type of data analysis you need to carry out in
order to find the insights you’re looking for.
 Visualize the data and share your findings: Translate your key insights into visual
format (e.g. graphs, charts, or heatmaps) and present them to the relevant
audience(s).
Essentially, you visualize your data any time you want to summarize and highlight key
findings and share them with others. With that in mind, let’s consider what kinds of
insights you can convey with data visualizations.

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What are the advantages and disadvantages of data visualization?
Something as simple as presenting data in graphic format may seem to have no
downsides. But sometimes data can be misrepresented or misinterpreted when placed in
the wrong style of data visualization. When choosing to create a data visualization, it’s
best to keep both the advantages and disadvantages in mind.

Advantages
Our eyes are drawn to colors and patterns. We can quickly identify red from blue, and
squares from circles. Our culture is visual, including everything from art and
advertisements to TV and movies. Data visualization is another form of visual art that
grabs our interest and keeps our eyes on the message. When we see a chart, we quickly
see trends and outliers. If we can see something, we internalize it quickly. It’s storytelling
with a purpose. If you’ve ever stared at a massive spreadsheet of data and couldn’t see a
trend, you know how much more effective a visualization can be.
Some other advantages of data visualization include:
 Easily sharing information.
 Interactively explore opportunities.
 Visualize patterns and relationships.

Disadvantages
While there are many advantages, some of the disadvantages may seem less obvious. For
example, when viewing a visualization with many different datapoints, it’s easy to make
an inaccurate assumption. Or sometimes the visualization is just designed wrong so that
it’s biased or confusing.
Some other disadvantages include:
 Biased or inaccurate information.
 Correlation doesn’t always mean causation.
 Core messages can get lost in translation.

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Why data visualization is important?
The importance of data visualization is simple: it helps people see, interact with, and
better understand data. Whether simple or complex, the right visualization can bring
everyone on the same page, regardless of their level of expertise.
It’s hard to think of a professional industry that doesn’t benefit from making data more
understandable. Every STEM field benefits from understanding data—and so do fields in
government, finance, marketing, history, consumer goods, service industries, education,
sports, and so on.
While we’ll always wax poetically about data visualization (you’re on the Tableau
website, after all) there are practical, real-life applications that are undeniable. And, since
visualization is so prolific, it’s also one of the most useful professional skills to develop.
The better you can convey your points visually, whether in a dashboard or a slide deck,
the better you can leverage that information. The concept of the citizen data scientist is on
the rise. Skill sets are changing to accommodate a data-driven world. It is increasingly
valuable for professionals to be able to use data to make decisions and use visuals to tell
stories of when data informs the who, what, when, where, and how.

While traditional education typically draws a distinct line between creative storytelling
and technical analysis, the modern professional world also values those who can cross
between the two: data visualization sits right in the middle of analysis and visual
storytelling.
Different types of visualizations
When you think of data visualization, your first thought probably immediately goes to
simple bar graphs or pie charts. While these may be an integral part of visualizing data
and a common baseline for many data graphics, the right visualization must be paired
with the right set of information.

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General Types of Visualizations:
 Chart: Information presented in a tabular, graphical form with data displayed along
two axes. Can be in the form of a graph, diagram, or map.

 Table: A set of figures displayed in rows and columns.

 Graph: A diagram of points, lines, segments, curves, or areas that represents

certain variables in comparison to each other, usually along two axes at a right
angle.

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  Geospatial: A visualization that shows data in map form using different shapes and
colors to show the relationship between pieces of data and specific locations.

 Infographic: A combination of visuals and words that represent data. Usually uses
charts or diagrams.

 Dashboards: A collection of visualizations and data displayed in one place to help

with analyzing and presenting data.

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More specific examples
 Area Map: A form of geospatial visualization, area maps are used to show specific
values set over a map of a country, state, county, or any other geographic location.
Two common types of area maps are choropleths and isopleths.

 Bar Chart: Bar charts represent numerical values compared to each other. The
length of the bar represents the value of each variable.

 Box-and-whisker Plots: These show a selection of ranges (the box) across a set
measure (the bar).

 Bullet Graph: A bar marked against a background to show progress or performance

against a goal, denoted by a line on the graph.

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  Gantt Chart: Typically used in project management, Gantt charts are a bar chart
depiction of timelines and tasks.

 Heat Map: A type of geospatial visualization in map form which displays specific
data values as different colors (this doesn’t need to be temperatures, but that is a
common use).

 Histogram: A type of bar chart that split a continuous measure into different bins to
help analyze the distribution.

 Pie Chart: A circular chart with triangular segments that shows data as a
percentage of a whole.

 Tree map: A type of chart that shows different, related values in the form of
rectangles nested together.

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Conclusion:

Data visualization is a powerful tool that can be used to improve research,

communication, and education in academia. By following the best practices outlined
above, academics can create data visualizations that are both informative and engaging.

Additional thought:

Data visualization can also be used to promote equity and inclusion in academia by
making data more accessible and understandable to everyone.

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Reference
1. Healy, K. (2019) Data visualization a practical introduction. Princeton, N.J:
Princeton University Press. Information Visualization: Perception for Design” by
Colin Ware
2. Wexler, S., Shaffer, J. and Cotgreave, A. (2017) The big book of dashboards:
Visualizing your data using real-world business scenarios. Hoboken, NJ: John
Wiley & Sons, Inc.
3. Knaflic, C.N. (2015) Storytelling with data: A Data Visualization Guide for
Business Professionals. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
4. Few, S. (2013) Information dashboard design: Displaying data for at-a-glance
Monitoring. Burlingame (California, USA): Analytics Press.

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