Data visualizations can help business users understand analytics insights and actually see the reasons why certain recommendations make the most sense. Traditional Business Intelligence and analytics vendors, as well as newer market entrants, are offering data visualization technologies and platforms.
Here's a collection of 10 data visualization tools worthy of your consideration:
Tableau Software is perhaps the best known platform for data visualization across a wide array of users. Some Coursera courses dedicated to data visualization use Tableau as the underlying platform. The Seattle-based company describes its mission this way: "We help people see and understand their data."
This company, founded in 2003, offers a family of interactive data visualization products focused on Business Intelligence. The software is offered in desktop, server, and cloud versions. There's also a free public version used by bloggers, journalists, quantified-self hobbyists, sports fans, political junkies, and others.
Tableau was one of three companies featured in the Leaders square of the 2016 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Business Intelligence and Analytics Platforms.
Qlik was founded in Lund, Sweden in 1993. It's another of the Leaders in Gartner's 2016 Magic Quadrant for Business Intelligence and Analytics Platforms. Now based in Radnor, Penn., Qlik offers a family of products that provide data visualization to users. Its new flagship Qlik Sense offers self-service visualization and discovery. The product is designed for drag-and-drop creation of interactive data visualizations. It's available in versions for desktop, server, and cloud.
Gartner dropped Oracle from its 2016 Magic Quadrant Business Intelligence and Analytics Platform report. One of the company's newer products, Oracle Visual Analyzer, could help the database giant make it back into the report in years to come.
Oracle Visual Analyzer, introduced in 2015, is a web-based tool provided within the Oracle Business Intelligence Cloud Service. It's available to existing customers of Oracle's Business Intelligence Cloud. The company's promotional materials promise advanced analysis and interactive visualizations. Configurable dashboards are also available.
SAS is one of the traditional vendors in the advanced analytics space, with a long history of offering analytical insights to businesses. SAS Visual Analytics is among its many offerings.
The company offers a series of sample reports showing how visual analytics can be applied to questions and problems in a range of industries. Examples include healthcare claims, casino performance, digital advertising, environmental reporting, and the economics of Ebola outbreaks.
