The power of visualization

Reading through some web sources we find that decisions specially business decisions has been traditionally dependent on text-based reports presented in quantitative (tabular or spreadsheet) forms transformed from huge raw data. This process helps to make faster and better decisions .Text-based reports have been incorporating visual presentations to make information more clear and appealing to the reader.
Visually presented information can be better than only text-based in message delivering to the ned user because:
1.Some readers have a personal preference of graphs and pictures in reports. They are visually oriented.They look first at the picture and then read the text for more detail while others read the text first and look the picture for more detail.
2.Pictures and graphs can help us see things that otherwise would have missed. By showing relationships and differences visually, a reader can grasp the information easily.
A report presented to senior managers, who have very little time to absorb detail, for example will be effective and welcomed simply if presented visually portraying the data in a way that emphasis the main points.

I think Images can also encourage creativity. A message written only in a text format may usually mean what is merely written, but a message presented in an image form or a text with combination with graphs may have many meanings and can be translated differently with different users and this could mean a disadvantage as Lauren Walker have put it on her blog for the reasons she mentioned. But I can see it differently, I agree with Lauren that a message in an image format can be translated differently by different people but this could encourage creativity. People may see the image and have a second or even third though about it and keep analyzing to come up with alternative.

On the other hand data presented visually can be deceptive. It can be presented in such a way that destructs the reader from the main information. This can be done by designing data that is not directly related with the intended information (called data-ink). It is just added to distract the reader from main message or information when this point was discussed in class I was thinking the way a warning phrase is done in a cigarette package. When the law requires them to add a text they don’t like or a text that would hurt their business they do it in such a way that that is not easily visible to the reader.
In the following Picture.1 the designer added some features that make it difficult to read compared o the next Picture.2 which is very visible and not hard to read.

Picture.1



A very visible and easy to read index appeared in a pilot’s manual to accompany the pilot when flying.
Piture.2