Thinking back to a time not too long ago, the allegedly miraculous ability to create smart data visualisations, also referred to as dataviz, was something pretty handy to have. The skill seemed to stand out to managers who were interested in investing in and acquiring it. Thinking of it now, things have clearly taken quite the turn.
Dataviz has been replaced by something considered more important. Today, managers look for visual communication as that must-have skill. The prime reason for this progression is data. Decisions are made based on data, which is provided in overwhelming volumes, so immense that they cannot be comprehended without abstract representation — in this case, a visual representation.
Let alone statistical business information, mundane tasks such as the way customers move through a mall or the amount of traffic that piles up on a street are difficult to understand if you cannot first visualise them.
However, the usual questions arise: How many colours are too many? How many graphs should I use? What type of graph would be suitable? In such cases, visual grammar is not only important, but also extremely helpful. However, knowing does not guarantee anything. To dress for a jog without knowing where you are jogging is useless unless you have a strategy.
An article in the Harvard Business Review talks about this.
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