Data Visualization Examples: Tools and Real-life Applications

Data visualization refers to the process of making visuals like charts, infographics, or graphs to organize data in a way that you can easily see and extract data. Visualizations are important because people can glean information from an image faster than they can by reading a paragraph of text that communicates the same information. You can choose from a staggering number of options for data visualization. In fact, a Denmark-based firm, Ferdio, created the Data Viz project and developed 100 visualizations using a single data set [1]. 

Sometimes, it can be helpful to see data visualization examples from real life for inspiration and to help you think about what makes a good data visualization. Explore real-world data visualization examples that explore society, history, and business applications. 

What is data visualization?

Data visualization is the process of arranging your data in a visual way, such as using a graph, chart, or timeline. Data visualizations make it easier to spot patterns, tell stories, understand how data points relate to one another, and quickly communicate information. You can use these visuals to strengthen your data-driven decision-making, brainstorm new ideas, and look for evidence that an idea will be a good one. 

Why is data visualization important?

Data visualization is an important tool to communicate complicated ideas and organize data in an engaging and easy-to-understand way. Research has shown that you can identify the subject of an image if you look at the image for as little as 13 milliseconds [2]. That helps demonstrate how incredibly tuned the human brain is to receive visual information. People can extract meaning from images and other visual cues in merely a fraction of a second. If you compare that with the time it takes to read the same information in visual form, you can see that images are an effective way to communicate your message, whether you are creating advertising for your brand or whether you are creating a data visualization to present your findings. 

Data visualization examples

Whether you want to get inspiration or just see examples of effective data visualization, these real-life examples can demonstrate how data visualization can quickly and effectively communicate information and help you organize your data. 

Historic data visualization examples

One famous example of data visualization is the Broad Street Cholera Outbreak Map. In 1854, John Snow collected data about people who were sick from Cholera in London. He created a data visualization to analyze his results, and he successfully tracked the cause of the outbreak to a single contaminated pump on Broad Street. 

Data visualization examples that explore society 

Contemporary data scientists also use data visualizations to understand society. A few examples of contemporary data visualizations that attempt to understand the state of society and culture include: 

• Data breaches: You can use a data visualization to explore the history and impact of data breaches. For example, using visualizations, you can view data breaches across a timeline moving back in history, measuring the size and frequency of data breaches and a visualization of the biggest data breaches organized by the sensitivity of the data exposed. 

• Distribution of the world’s population: You can also use data visualization to see how the world’s population is distributed. For example, a visual that imagines the world’s population as a pie chart could display each country taking a slice (or a nibble) of the whole to help you see things in a new way, like measuring the population of countries independent of their land mass. 

• How people take selfies: A project analyzing selfies taken in different cities can help illustrate how people take their own pictures differently based on where they live. Using visualizations, you can explore their results in a series of image plots. 

• Most repeated relationship advice: Another way to visualize information is with a word cloud. For example, you could use a word cloud visual to compile relationship advice from magazines like Huffington Post, Cosmo, Elle, and more, indicating the frequency of the advice given using the size of the text in the image. 

Business data visualization examples

Businesses collect a lot of data they have to manage and analyze to help inform data-driven decisions successfully. A few examples of the ways you might use data visualization in business include: 

• Inventory monitoring: You might use data visualization to manage your inventory and monitor the number of items in stock. Microsoft Visio created a program where you can look at a diagram of your storefront and see your inventory levels projected onto the items for sale. 

• Customer support ticket management: You can use data visualization to organize information about customer support tickets, creating a dashboard that allows you to see the scope of your team's work and prioritize the most pressing issues. 

• Financial performance overview: If you manage financial information, you may already use different visualizations to help make it easier to understand. A financial dashboard provides an example of organizing this information, with tabs for an overview, balance sheet, and income statement. 

• Financials: You can use a visualization to illustrate all of your financials, including your balance sheet, margins, expenses, purchasing power, capital, debt or equity, and more. In some cases, you can modify a template to suit your needs. 

Health care data visualization examples

Data is vital to health care. Visualizations can help medical professionals and administrators manage their processes and improve patient outcomes through the insights that come from data. Explore a few examples of how you could use data visualization in health care: 

• Length of stay: A hospital or other organization could explore data related to the average length of stay of patients admitted to the hospital, organized to make it easier to spot patterns and trends. 

• Patient dashboard: A patient portal or dashboard is a visualization that health care providers can use to share information about visits with their patients, including recent visits, diagnoses, and treatments. 

• Antibiotic resistance: Visualizations are also important to health care-related research. For instance, you might create one to view how different strains of bacteria have developed resistance to types of antibiotics over time as a bubble chart. 

Marketing data visualization examples

Data visualization can help you gain insight from data and create a stronger marketing plan using data-driven decisions. A couple of examples of marketing data visualization examples include: 

• Customer demographics: Data visualization can help you understand your customers' behavior. Your customer demographics data could feature tabs for customer demographics, behavior, and RFM analysis. 

• Marketing funnel: You can use data visualization to create a dashboard with easy access to all of your marketing key performance indicators, like your conversion rate and the total number of leads you’re reaching. 

Data visualization tools

You can use tools like Tableau, Microsoft Power BI, Excel, or Google Sheets to help you create data visualizations. When considering which tool is best for you, think about how you want to use your data and find a platform or tool that offers similar functionality. To help you begin, explore these tools. 

• Tableau: Tableau is a platform for data visualization that helps you understand, visualize, and act on your data. You can also use Tableau Public to create visualizations for free, linking directly to data in your Excel sheet or other formats.

• Microsoft Power BI: Microsoft Power BI is a platform for managing and analyzing business intelligence, including creating data visualizations. You can start with a free trial to get to know their features, which include connecting to and reporting on your data. 

• Excel and Google Sheets: You can use Excel or Google Sheets to create basic visualizations, including graphs and charts like pie charts, bar charts, line graphs, timelines, scatter plots, and more. 

Create your own data visualization examples: Build your skills on Coursera

Data visualization is an effective way to spot patterns and see new connections in your data, helping you make stronger decisions based on facts. If you want to learn more about data visualization, you can find programs on Coursera to help you begin. For example, consider the Microsoft Power BI Data Analyst Professional Certificate to help you learn about what you can accomplish in Microsoft Power BI and prepare for or strengthen your skills for a career as a data analyst. Or, if Tableau looks more like the platform for your needs, you can consider the Tableau Business Intelligence Analyst Professional Certificate.