What is Visual Analytics (and why Should I care?)

Whether it's through talking with a friend or seeing trending items on social media, visual analytics is becoming a part of how we conduct business.   But what is it exactly? My concise definition is as follows:

Visual analytics leverages automated analytical techniques to create interactive visualizations in order to make well-informed decisions.

Data visualization is a big part of the visual analytics process, but it's only one piece.  A visualization isn't meaningful if it's not being used to inform or make decisions, which is the second part of the definition above.  

People at all levels of business are using visual analytics to carry out their responsibilities. Data visualizations are helpful in measuring performance and identifying outliers.  Because the data is shown visually, using patterns and pre-attentive attributes, the reader can quickly see the the information being displayed.  Whether it's exploring the data or having a report available, quicker insights should translate into quicker decisions, which in turn facilitates timely business transactions.  

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At Analytics to Inform, we believe in empowering executives with information to make well-informed decisions.  Explore our services page to see which service can help your business.  

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