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Visual analysis is pragmatic, not just “pretty”

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So many of us who feel drawn to visual analysis can’t understand why everyone can’t see the value. “Pretty pictures,” the skeptics mutter. On Eager Eyes, Robert Kosara makes important points that I haven’t seen before.

Toward the end of his post he writes, “We need a new term.” He rejects the aged and indefinite “visualization” and the baggage-laden “visual analytics.” He prefers “visual analysis.”

Whatever we call it, it’s harder to use than it seems.

You have seen the bar and pie charts, but do you actually know what they mean? Do you know how to use them to tease the relevant information out of your data?

… Read the rest “Visual analysis is pragmatic, not just “pretty””

Data analysts and journalists

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“Heroic analysts” and journalists keep running into each other, at least in my mind. I realized that two scribbles from last Sunday about journalism can also be about data analysis:

• “… the most precious gems gathered in any journalistic journey are frequently those found around the edges of a story.”

• ” … the secret to memorable nonfiction is so often the writer’s readiness to be surprised.”

They’re both from the same book review. Come to think of it, both belong in the Datadoodle manifesto.

Denial of access

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I hear a story like the one I heard this week and I want to ask the apparent villain why. There must be a reasonable explanation.

At first glance, he’s like other managers I’ve known of who throttle promising work for what seems like a personal need for control. “So tell me,” I’d like to say over beers, “what were you thinking when you denied that analyst free access to that data? What’s your side of it?”