Hey Clarity- I'm a business intelligence consultant, on a mission to help executives leverage their data to really work for them, and I'm at a crossroads. I've been working with a client, and I've given them their data in a way that's easy to ask questions, I've enriched it, by doing the grunt work for them ( segmentation, calculations, ratings, etc). They are really loving it! They have Tableau now, and every report they make looks like Excel. I was talking to them about trying out visualization, and they laughed and said that it's fluff. Thinking about it made me wonder.... Do decision makers really use visualized data to make decisions, or is it really just another buzz word? Thanks so much for any insight.
Great question. I think its important to remember that the goal of visualization is to provide useful information from relevant data. It does not replace data. I work with made corporate boards. Some love the columns and rows and see charts as a nice-to-have extra. Some depend on visual charts to help them understand key items and make quick decisions. The most important thing if that your visuals tell a quick and easy to understand story that can be easily cross referenced to data if needed.
To many people try to use visualization to show their artful expertise, rather than support data decisions and understanding.
It should also be noted that as you move deeper into organizations, where the use and love of spreadsheets is not as common, visualization provides a way to make complex concepts accessible to those who need the information, but may not understand the data.
Answered 9 years ago
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