Nov
12
Visualize or summarize?
Image by Kaeru via Flickr
I've recently started using raw visualizations to get an idea of what data looks like rather than writing scripts to summarize. And what I found is that presenting data visually in a raw format might be more useful than condensing everything down into just a few numbers. Trouble is that you need to know what you expect and make assumptions if you want to analyze the data. The best tool you have for identifying trends or non-randomness is yourself, not R or a scripting language.
Bought the Visualizing Data book by Ben Fry to help me with this. It explains how to use the Processing language to present data in a meaningful way.
I've recently started using raw visualizations to get an idea of what data looks like rather than writing scripts to summarize. And what I found is that presenting data visually in a raw format might be more useful than condensing everything down into just a few numbers. Trouble is that you need to know what you expect and make assumptions if you want to analyze the data. The best tool you have for identifying trends or non-randomness is yourself, not R or a scripting language.
Bought the Visualizing Data book by Ben Fry to help me with this. It explains how to use the Processing language to present data in a meaningful way.
