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Powerful Data Visualization
When related data is displayed in BIS² Super Graphics, new discoveries are possible, turning the raw data into actionable information. Super Graphics allow the brain to discover meaningful relationships that may be used to prioritize a business plan and actualize objectives.
Graphical representations that display correlated data (traditional charts and graphs) have been around for a long time. At an elemental level, the purpose is typically an effort to discover information unknown by looking directly at the data elements.
Consider the example below from Anscombe: Four sets of data each of which has the same statistical measures. All four sets of data have 11 rows (n=11), the mean of the x‘s is 9, and the mean of the y‘s is 7.5. Each set of numbers has the same regression line Y = 3.5X.
These four columns have the same statistical measures. If we were going to analyze these numbers statistically, we may make the same conclusions to all four sets of data.
Anscombe suggested that observation should be the first step in the analysis process.
In the example to the right, using a data visualization may well lead us to different conclusions (and hence actions) in respect of the above four data sets.
Note that this example utilizes only one traditional type of picture – a graph. Such a traditional method for turning volumes of data into information, however useful, may well be considered obsolete when placed within the current age of 'Big Data' stored in enormous data warehouses.
Source: F.J. Anscombe, “Graphics in Statistical Analysis”, American Statistician, 37 (February 1973), 17-21