Visualization of some raw data can vividly, visually convey the main points buried in the data. Here’s a good example of how a business report can make use of data visualization.
A friend of mine, who works for a Chinese language media, is working on a business report analyzing the advertising market in New Jersey. One of her points is that because of the size and steady growth of the Chinese immigrants, mainstream advertising agencies should tap into the Chinese ads market.
What she has are some demographic data she compiled from the 1990, 2000, 2010 census data, showing the growth of six major ethnic groups in New Jersey:
My friend wants to emphasize two points based on this data: (a) Chinese is the second fastest growing group; (b) Chinese is the second largest group. However, it is not a good idea to include this table in the article and tell readers to see for themselves.
With the help of Infogram, a free online data visualization too, I generated two interactive visualizations from that data set; the two visualizations below convey those two points visually and vividly: