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What is data visualisation?

Posted on October 19, 2015

Data visualisation is the visual display of quantitative information. It presents data using colour, size, or shape to display insights and tell stories or relay narratives. Data visualisation is therefore both an art and a science. The art side of things relates the aesthetic quality of the visual story telling, while the science involves the accuracy of the data from collection all the way through to the presentation, and forms the basis of the story that is being told.

Chris Saden's (2015) video interviews some of the industry's leading lights. Scott Murray calls it the mapping of values to visuals that are more readily understood. Cole Nussbaumer says it the turning of numbers and pictures into stories.

References

• Saden,C. (2015). Defining Data Visualization - Data Visualization and D3.js. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TMH43G11OnQ.