From the course: Learning Data Visualization

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Explanatory vs. exploratory

Explanatory vs. exploratory

From the course: Learning Data Visualization

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Explanatory vs. exploratory

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- [Instructor] Data visualizations come in two primary flavors, exploratory and explanatory. When you're visualizing data, you need to decide which type you're creating. This of course relates directly to your quas, particularly what your audience needs to hear. If you're creating a tool for internal use in an organization to track and manage KPIs or to enable some other business intelligence activities, you might be creating exploratory visualizations, like a dashboard that allows a manager to poke around in the data, and find the insights themselves. This might include more individual data points, and filters and toggles, and hover events to reveal more details. If you're creating a report to expose some specific insights that you've uncovered in data, you might be creating more of an explanatory visualization. In this case, the insights should come right out and box someone on the nose. It won't require any…

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