Making data visualization work for you
Here are a few tips for making actionable and efficient visualizations:
- Consider your audience:
- Keep the decisions made by each of your audience in mind. A paid search analyst will want to look at the differences in ROI for different paid search campaigns, while a social media manager will want to know which posts drove the most visits. If you are unaware of the type of data desired by the end user, set some time to discuss the goals of the project.
- Choose chart types wisely:
- Be mindful of scales for line and bar charts.
- Pie charts and 3D charts should be avoided. In most situations, pie charts can be replaced with bar charts.
- Show only what is important:
- As initially stated, visualization's focus is to drive action. Do not confuse the viewer with overkill, either by too many charts or too many elements within a single chart.
The rest of this chapter includes information on using three different tools to visualize your Google BigQuery data. The tools are...
