Pros and Cons of Data Visualization

Pros and Cons of Data Visualization

Almost every business, today, relies on numbers or data. A lot of data is considered and researched before

Almost every business, today, relies on numbers or data. A lot of data is considered and researched before taking any decision.

It’s not always very easy to understand the complex data that is presented in front of you for the evaluation of certain issues. A human brain may understand data but it way too exhausting to deduce anything from it.

Even after this, do we have a complete understanding of the situation? Maybe not. A better solution to this can be a representation of data in pictorial form. It’s quick, clear, and easy to understand.

That’s why data visualization has become an inseparable part of the modern decision-making process.

Data visualization is where raw data is taken into consideration and then converted into graphs, charts, and infographics to present a visual image of data. In much easier language if put, it’s the pictorial or graphical representation of the information.

Data visualization can help to convert vast data into the pictorial form which is easily understood. The amount of time one takes to understand the complex data is reduced to a great extent when the same data is present in the pictorial form.

Having the excel sheet data presented in the forms of pie charts, graphs, bar charts helps the decision-makers to understand the situation well in time and quickly.

8 Pros of Data Visualization

Better understanding

In business many a time it happens that we have to compare the performances of two elements or two scenarios.

A traditional approach would be to go through the bulky data of both the situations and then analyze it. This obviously is going to kill a lot of time.

A better way to solve this problem will be putting the data of both the aspects into pictorial form. This will surely give a better understanding of the situations.

For example, Google trends help us understand large data related to top searches or queries in pictorial or graphical forms.

This’d have been difficult for an average person to understand quickly and easily if the same data were presented in figures.

Easy sharing of information

With the visualization of the data, companies introduce a new set of communication. Instead of sharing the bulky data, sharing the visual information will engage & convey across the information which is more digestible.

Accurate analysis

With the help of data visualization, it becomes easier to understand the trends and therefore draw a better inference of the data. Thereby, giving organizations an edge over the rivals.

Sales analysis

With the help of data visualization, a salesperson can easily understand the sales report of products.

With data visualization tools like heat maps, he will be able to understand the causes that are pushing the sales numbers up as well as the reasons that are degrading the sales numbers.

Data visualization helps in understanding the trends and also other factors like types of customers interested in buying, repeat customers, the effect of geography, etc.

Finding relations between events

It’s a known fact that a business is affected by a lot of factors. Finding a correlation between these factors or events helps decision-makers to understand the issues related to their business.

For example, the Online business market is not a new thing today. Every time during certain festive seasons like Christmas or Thanksgiving the graphs of online businesses go up.

So, say if an online company is doing an average of a $1 million business in a certain quarter and the sales rise up in next, then they can quickly find the events corresponding to it.

Modification of data

The strong point of data visualization is that the data on the basis of which the information is presented in a visual format can be altered or modified thus giving an option for the business personals to establish better communication with the audience.

Exploring opportunities and trends

With the tons of data present, the business leaders are able to find the depth of knowledge regarding the trends and opportunities around them.

Using data visualization, the authorities are able to find the patterns in the behavior of their customers, thus paving the way for them to explore trends and opportunities for the business.

Geographical visualization

One of the strong points of data visualization is the geographical visualization. Herein, authorities have the advantage of location information providing data for daily analysis.

With the help of this, a new type of data is made available for consideration.

Also Read: 11 Best Use Cases of Data Visualization

5 Cons of Data Visualization

It gives estimation not accuracy

While the data is accurate in predicting the situations, the visualization of the same just gives the estimation. It surely is easy to convert the hefty and lengthy data into easy pictorial format but this sort of representation of information may lead to speculative conclusions sometimes.


The basic formation of data visualization happens with the human interface, meaning the data that happens to be the base of visualization can be biased.

The person fetching the data for the same may only take into consideration the important section of data or the data that needs focus and may exclude the rest of the data which might lead to biased results.

Lack of assistance

One of the drawbacks of data visualization is that it can’t assist, meaning a different group of the audience may interpret it differently.

Improper design issue

If data visualization is considered a new sort of communication. Then it has to be genuine in explaining the purpose. If the design is not proper then this can lead to confusion in communication.

Wrong focused people can skip core messages

One of the issues with data visualization is though it may be explanatory its clarity in explanation is completely dependent on the focus of its audience.

If the audience is not focusing on the core message for which the visualization is presented it may not seem satisfactory and then such people may remain untouched to the core purpose of them doing any analysis.


Data visualization in today’s business world can’t be ignored. With the addition of tons of data, it has proved to be a sigh of relief for modern analysts.

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Jason Hoffman
