All researchers will be handling some data at some point in their careers. However, the data, in its regular shape (tables), is quite hard to grasp for most people. Especially if there is a lot of it, this is where data visualization comes to help. The idea is to bring forth the essential aspects of the data - to tell a story. However, just putting data into a graph or figure might do more harm than good. Not only could it give wrong conclusions, but it also might be misleading. This is one of the main reasons why the exact way how you visualize the data is fundamental.

This lecture is part of a series of lectures and workshops called “Data visualisation.” The first lecture will discuss why data visualization is important and what we should consider when designing it. This means what chart type to pick, how much information to include, what (and how) to highlight, and so on. This lecture will be followed up by a workshop in May.