Why Use Visuals? As You Will Learn In Completing This Projec
Why Use Visuals? As you will learn in completing this project, numbers don’t speak for themselves, and writing with data requires critical and rhetorical thought, as well as visual design skills. Data visualizations bring a number of benefits to any professional document, even short ones: • Though they have become extremely easy to make, people in the workplace still tend to be impressed by the extra effort and thoughtful presentation implicit in making a visualization. • Data visualizations also help to make the work of digesting and interpreting data more efficient by displaying trends or illustrating the significance of specific information without poring over page after page of numbers. • Because of this efficiency, visual elements are also better at communicating certain ideas more quickly than words or tabular data.
Something that may take many sentences to communicate, a sudden drop in the efficiency of a process, or a surge in sales among a certain demographic, are instantly recognizable as spikes or dips along the X axis of a line graph. FOR EXAMPLE: This short report from the Department of Education Download short report from the Department of Education provides an overview of literacy and numeracy for men and women. In this online short report, the authors created two bar charts that are designed to show relationships between data and then they briefly explain the importance of the data. However, as previously mentioned, numbers don’t speak for themselves. Integrating visuals comes with all the benefits listed above, but using visuals also comes with responsibility to use visuals fairly and justly.
Visuals reduce people to numbers, to data, and then, by making a visual using some data but not other data, you make some people more significant than others. Your visuals represent a choice to emphasize some facts, and, in so doing, deemphasize others. Your visuals must be complete and accurate, but also fair and just. When you create your visuals, you should start with questions such as, “Am I representing the data accurately?” and also, “Am I representing the data fully and in a way that does no harm to certain groups?”
Assignment Choose one of the following scenarios and produce a one to two-page, informative, visually interesting report that uses the dataset provided to address the scenario. This report should incorporate at least three visuals that you have created along with a discussion/analysis of the data in your figures. The text in your report should • introduce the topic and its importance • explain the meaning of the visuals • point to the conclusions suggested by the data. In working on this project, you will engage with different types of visuals, as well as the conventions of writing with data and numbers. To achieve these goals, you will select one of the scenarios listed below. After reviewing the data set provided with the scenario you will do the following: 1. Identify the purpose (and audience) of the scenario, and then determine what point you want to make with the dataset and how this addresses the scenario. 2. Then, since you can’t visualize all the data in your data set, you will make decisions about which data to visualize. 3. Using the data you have selected, you will create three data visualizations to help you make your point. 4. Then you will write about and analyze that data in a brief, informative, visual report. In your visuals, you want to communicate the data you select from your data set in a way that maximizes the impact of the data. Use the textbook chapter on Visual Design (Ch. 5) to help you design and write about your visuals. Additionally, you may wish to use this Periodic Table of Visualization Methods (Links to an external site.) to explore various types and uses of visuals. Deliverables • Visual, informational report • A short 350- to 500-word note that explains the following (use headings to identify each of the topics listed below): o Why you selected your scenario o How you selected which data to visualize and why you visualized it in the form you did o What decisions you made to tailor your report to your audience and your purpose o How you ensured that your visualizations of the data were fair, accurate, and clear
Why Use Visuals? As you will learn in completing this project, numbers don’t speak for themselves, and writing with data requires critical and rhetorical thought, as well as visual design skills.
Data visualizations bring a number of benefits to any professional document, even short ones: people in the workplace tend to be impressed by the extra effort and thoughtful presentation implicit in creating a visualization. Visualizations help to make digesting and interpreting data more efficient by displaying trends or highlighting significant information without the need to analyze extensive numerical data. They also communicate ideas more quickly than words or tables, allowing for rapid understanding of spikes, dips, or trends within the data.
For example, a sudden decline in a process's efficiency or a surge in sales among a particular demographic can be immediately noticeable as a dip or spike in a line graph. A short report from the Department of Education demonstrates this by providing an overview of literacy and numeracy for men and women, using bar charts to depict relationships in the data and briefly explain their significance. However, numbers alone do not speak for themselves. Incorporating visuals offers clear benefits but also entails responsibility to ensure visuals are fair and just.
Visuals can inadvertently emphasize some data over others, thus influencing perception. When creating visuals, it is important to consider whether the data is represented accurately, fully, and ethically—avoiding potential harm or misrepresentation of groups or facts. The goal is to communicate data in a way that is comprehensive, truthful, and respectful.
Paper For Above instruction
For this project, I chose the scenario of analyzing regional sales performance to identify trends and inform strategic decisions. The importance of this topic lies in its relevance to business growth and resource allocation, making it critical for managers to understand where to focus their efforts. The dataset provided included sales figures across different regions over several quarters, which I narrowed down to focus on three key aspects: overall sales trends, regional comparisons, and seasonal fluctuations.
In selecting data to visualize, I aimed to highlight aspects most relevant to decision-makers. I chose to create visuals that showed overall sales growth, regional performance disparities, and the seasonal impact on sales. The visual formats—line graphs for trends, bar charts for comparisons, and heat maps for regional performance—were chosen based on their effectiveness at illustrating these specific aspects clearly and intuitively, following principles outlined in Chapter 5 of the textbook on Visual Design.
My decision to tailor the visuals to a managerial audience involved simplifying complex data into accessible visuals that communicated key insights quickly. I avoided clutter and focused on visual clarity by using distinct color schemes and clear labels. I also ensured that the data presented was complete and unbiased, avoiding distortions such as truncated axes or misleading scales that could misrepresent trends. To maintain fairness and accuracy, I verified that the data was representative of the entire dataset, avoiding selective omission and ensuring each visual fairly depicted regional differences and seasonal effects.
This approach ensured my report was both informative and ethically sound, emphasizing transparency and fairness. The visuals serve as tools to communicate critical insights effectively, supporting data-driven decision-making that respects the integrity of the data and the audience's need for clear, actionable information.