1 Hello, data viz!
This chapter covers
- Introducing data visualization (data viz)
- Knowing your audience
- Understanding examples of data viz throughout time
- Reviewing popular tools used to create visualizations today
Data visualization is all around you.
Sometimes it sneaks up on you in the most unlikely places - have you played any video games recently? I bet there was some kind of viz to show your character’s remaining health, or your progress toward a goal, or a map to show you the lay of the land and maybe all the places you’d been.
Not only is it fun, but visualization can be incredibly important to the success of an individual, an organization, or even a society as a whole. In 19th century England, Florence Nightingale turned the medical world upside-down with visualizations of data she’d collected over decades of working in military hospitals. When she would present ideas to the Powers That Be and then they would argue back about, “That’s just not how we do it,” she actually managed to change minds only when she showed them a visualization of her data.
Well-designed visualizations save lives and can turn entire industries around…and they can also tell you how many lives you have left with your little red plumber guy before you have to restart the game all over again. ;)