Today I will share with you an article on data visualization (provided by the China Spreadsheet Application Conference)
Data visualization is scientific and technological research on the visual representation of data. Among them, the visual representation of this data is defined as a kind of information extracted in a certain summary form, including various attributes and variables of the corresponding information unit.
This is the definition of "data visualization" on the encyclopedia. Is it a bit obscure? Let's interpret it in another way. If you are often criticized by leaders for not doing well in PPT, I think you will be able to understand this sentence "The text is not as good as the table, the table is not as shown in the picture." In fact, think about it from another perspective. If you are a leader yourself and face the complicated and complicated People and events should also have a good impression of highly summarized charts. In any case, the pleasing picture does make people feel better than the table.
A thousand words in a picture:
This so-called "a thousand words in a picture" is propagated by no borders and no nation, but many people have mixed information visualization and data visualization. Broadly speaking, several numbers as the result of data aggregation can be attributed to information concepts Yes, it can also be used by designers as visual elements. For example, the graphics options in AI.
I am not a graphic designer, so I can't do anything about it, and I dare not discuss the concept of information visualization with the professional knowledge of CCTV media. Although good use of information elements can add a lot of points, let's just talk about data visualization.
Where there is a need, there is technology. The latter means that it is reasonable. For different groups of people, the data visualization technology used by everyone is very different. I cut it from the perspective of individual users to help you classify.
对号入座了没有，入不进去的话也就算了，当领导也没啥不好的。以上技术工具刨除盗版因素，都是可以获得的，能做出来的效果也是各有千秋，一方面是难度问题，一方面也是经验问题。后面三类都是专业工具，也就是作为办公室人员，99%都用不上它们，第一种Office大家天天用，但你也许感到奇怪，Excel的图不是挺丑的吗？
上图是从百度搜出来的普通图表，难怪大家都这么想。我也是醉了，微软干嘛不把默认的图形搞的好看一些呢，无论是格式和配色，简直和国产软件一样！为了对比，我再从yahoo（为啥google还不能用）和Smartbi官微找了两张图，你看看有什么感觉？
Looking forward to my conclusion? In fact, it is very simple. The vast majority of Chinese compatriots have not discovered the power of Excel as a tool, or the unlimited flexibility and scalability. Everyone, don't say that I am fawning, I really can't find these good pictures from Baidu. No one scolds the street. Let me give you another example. The editors of The Economist, The Wall Street Journal, and BusinessWeek should all be Excel masters, or there are standardized Excel templates, and the charts they make are very tall.
如果你对Excel如何做出来这些效果好奇，我非常理解，因为第一次见到它们我也很吃惊，现在有很多教你做商业图表的书和网上课程（比如电子表格应用大会嘉宾刘万祥老师），相比学习成本应该非常可以接受。能自己掌握技巧是好事，以后你也可以炫耀给同事，那如果你不想学怎么办？别急，中国人多路子多，想必很快就会有人专门做这个事情，毕竟Excel的模板功能相当强大，不会就“抄”呗，这个领域应该是没有知识产权的吧！
所以对我们个人来说，Excel就够了，赶紧去学吧，保准一辈子不浪费。但对企业用户，Excel够不够呢？这点就有点麻烦，Excel现在的版本都是对个人比较方便，放到企业环境就有点别扭，比如数据是分散在数据库和本地的，而且报表的权限也有些要求，甚至还有领导想从手机、平板上看报表。别急，我说3条路，你自己选选：
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The first way: office visualization (continue to use Excel)
Can it be done? The answer is yes. Firstly, Microsoft cannot give up this market. Secondly, there are already domestic software (such as Smartbi spreadsheet pictures) that can use Excel to complete a series of functions such as data collection, analysis, display, and release. The advantage of this path is that the reports you have made before can be reused, and there is no need to learn new tools, and Smartbi spreadsheets are free.
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The second way: self-service visualization (don't even think of Excel reports)
These commercial software have become popular from abroad, such as Crystal Easy Watch, Qlikview, and Tableau. There are also many imitators in China, so I won't advertise them. These softwares simply make pictures directly, and basically don't have any report (cell) ability. People who are used to Excel can only be in love with them, and cannot "walk into the palace of marriage." But its ability to make pictures is really amazing, but there are more and more alternatives, which is not as surprising as it was two years ago.
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The third way: report visualization (an alternative to Excel reports)
This road has nothing to do with foreign products, and advertisements have to be marked, such as Runqian, Sematic, Fanruan, Yixin Huachen and so on. They fully understand the psychological status of Excel spreadsheets in domestic customers, so in terms of function, they first complete the "Chinese-style report", and then add statistical graphics. From the data visualization implementation method, the latter three have better visualization effects, and they should all integrate graphic controls of the xxx Charts class. It is commendable that Yixin Huachen and Sematic have successively switched to our domestic Echarts controls. Let’s talk about them later.
Echarts2.0 integrated by Yixin Huachen
Sematic Smartbi integrated Echarts3.0
这个Echarts是个什么鬼？它是百度旗下的一个产品，也是工程师派系最为追捧的唯一的国产化图形控件，很多甲方自己的开发人员都选用Echarts实现可视化展现分析，可谓这个领域的中国骄傲了！这下你知道为什么国产软件厂商都选择Echarts了吧。
This open source graphic control official website has more examples
After talking about how individual and business users understand data visualization, looking back at our environment, we are talking about "big data" everywhere, then what does it have to do with "data visualization"? Looking at a few pictures from the Internet, I personally summarize that all the previous visualization introductions are based on statistical data, but "big data visualization" is based on detailed data.
So, how are these big data visualizations based on details produced? It is conceivable that either these diagrams are generated using programming methods such as D3.js and Processing.js (engineers), or they are produced using mature tools such as Gephi (analysts). Gephi is a tool for visual analysis of social graph data. It can not only process large-scale data sets and generate beautiful visualization graphics, but also clean and classify the data. It is pretty cool from the official perspective.
To sum up, people say that women are "one white covering one hundred ugliness." The same data visualization is also used to satisfy the visual senses. Of course, the more beautiful the better. Whether you are a professional analysis tool for big data visualization or Excel, which is available on everyone’s computer, let’s take a look at your own career development direction. There is always your place in the office, designer, analyst and engineer , If you can do one of them, you can already shoot the "boss's flattery".
At the same time, I suggest that readers should choose free or open source software tools, and spend the money on learning it is the most worthwhile (I mentioned a course similar to Excel business charts before). If you use Excel+Smartbi, you can also publish to the APP to be cool, enough Force it! If you want to pursue individuality, use Gephi at critical moments, and your work report will be exceptional!