DS 1.01 Assessment Review - Visualizations

How are you feeling today?

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Match the following

• Pie Chart

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• Histogram

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• Scatterplot

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• Line Graph

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• Vertical Bar Chart / Column Chart

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Match the following

• Heat Map

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• Table

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• Candle Stick / Box-and-Whisker

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• Stacked Column Chart

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• Horizontal Bar Graph

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These visualizations show:

• How the data is composed

• How the values compare

• How the data is distributed

• How the values are related

Answer explanation

Visualizations that show how the data is composed means breaking down the data into set categories. These categories should always add up to 100% (sometimes you will need an "other" category).

Examples are Pie Charts, Donut Charts, Area Charts, Stacked Bar/Column Charts, Stacked Percent Charts

These visualizations show:

• How the data is composed

• How the values compare

• How the data is distributed

• How the values are related

Answer explanation

Visualizations that show how the data relates to each other compares two attributes of a given case to each other.

Examples: Bubble Chart, Scatterplot (which also shows how data is distributed), and Heat Maps.

These visualizations show:

• How the data is composed

• How the values compare

• How the data is distributed

• How the values are related

Answer explanation

Visualizations that show how the data is distributed is a way to answer, "What is normal?" For example, if you wanted to know the normal height of a 15-year-old, you would want to know how the heights of a 15-year-old are distributed. These types of graphs would be helpful for that. 

Examples: Histogram, Box-and-Whisker/Candlestick, Scatterplot (can also be used to show how data is related)

These visualizations show:

• How the data is composed

• How the values compare

• How the data is distributed

• How the values are related

Answer explanation

For example, you may want to compare how many people like basketball the most, how many people like soccer the most, and how many people like swimming the most. You may want to compare what a gallon of gas costed in 2000, 2010, and 2020. These visualizations would be good for that purpose. 

Examples: Tables, Heat Map, Bar Graph, Column Graph, Stacked Bar/Column Chart, Grouped Bar/Column Chart, Line Graph, Line Overlay, Area Chart

What is the potential issue with this visualization?

• It is overwhelming.

• It has no title.

• It is inaccurate.

• There are no issues with this map.

Answer explanation

When looking at the visualization below, a viewer may be even more overwhelmed than just looking at the table! While there is a legend at the bottom, it does not fully explain all of the aspects of the visualization. This is particularly important for this one since it is not very similar to any of the most common types of visualizations.

What is the potential issue with this visualization?

• It is misleading.

• It has no title.

• It is messy visually.

• There are no issues with this map.

Answer explanation

This example is most similar to a heat map. This means that the colors are the most important part of the visualization. When the viewer takes a look at this heat map, they are going to pay attention to West Virginia first. You can see that the value being represented is lower in West Virginia than in other states, since yellow shows 0% to 1.9%, and shades of blue represent 2% or more. While this is an accurate representation of the data, the big change in color makes you think that West Virginia is more different or more important than it necessarily must be. Since there is only one state in that category, it would be better represented with a lighter shade of blue.

What is the potential issue with this visualization?

• It is misleading.

• It has no title.

• It is messy visually.

• There are no issues with this map.

Answer explanation

The goal of the this visualization is to communicate that many different brands are all owned by just six companies. However, the amount of text is distracting and makes the visualization cluttered and overwhelming. A lot of the text is unnecessary, the visualization might be better created with a simple list of each brand, rather than a text description.