Exploring Data Visually - Data Points: Visualization That Means Something - page 199

Notice the spike at the zero-minute mark, where airlines aim to be right on
time? It looks like airlines either arrive right on time or whoever records the data
rounds to on-time arrivals. You wouldn't see that with just means and medians.
WHAT TO LOOK FOR
Regardless of the type of visualization you use to explore distributions, look
for peaks and valleys, range, and the spread of your data, which tell you a lot
more than just the mean and median would. The visual analysis of raw data
and the variation in between the summary statistics are almost always more
interesting, so make use of the opportunity when you get it.
WRAPPING UP
Visualization can be a great tool to explore your data, and with advancing
technologies, computers are less of a limiting factor than they were just a few
years ago. So the key to getting the most out of your data—to understand
what it represents and what it means—isn't so much about finding the right
software than it is to learn how to use the tools you have and to know what
questions to ask.
Consider what data you have and what you can get, where the data is from,
how it was derived, and what all the variables mean, and let that extra infor-
mation guide your visual exploration. If you use visualization as an analysis
tool, you must learn as much as you can about your data. Even if your goal is
to visualize data for presentation, exploration can lead to unexpected insights,
which makes for better graphics.