Who is a Data Visualization Engineer?

#datascience #design #storyteller

To answer simply, Data Visualization Engineer is someone who knows how to present data and story tell to drive the point home.

Let’s discuss what skills one should have to enjoy being in this role:

When you look at data especially messy data, your eyes should lit up and your fingers should start working already to clean and process data at hand.
When someone explains a problem, you kick start the process by doing research. The more research you do the better is your grip on the problem at hand. The better you understand the problem, the better is your presentation of solutions via Data Visualization.
If the question at hand is from a domain which is completely new to you, you should feel excited. Here is an opportunity for you to learn something new. Talk to people from that particular domain, do research and understand what is required to know about the domain to solve the problem. You should have good networking skills.
Data is not always available ready-made. If the data is not readily available, use your skills like web scrapping (with proper permissions) to get the data. Develop strong data acquisition skills. Sometimes, you have to design innovative solutions to acquire data.
If the data is not in the format you expected, pre-process it. Your programming skills should come in handy.
If the data is considerably big (that doesn’t fit in a spreadsheet) and you want to store it in a database, you should know how.
Sometimes, your data is distributed across different sources, you should have strong data engineering skills to get all of that data in one place.
Once your data is in the database, you want to conduct preliminary analysis to understand the data. Your strong SQL skills should help. You could also use Python, R or any other programming language of your choice to conduct Exploratory Data Analysis. Understand your data very well.
With the knowledge at hand, you should decide how you want to present your data and the solutions. Which tool to use. Always choose what suits the data. Develop knowledge and hands-on skills with different tools available including charting libraries, open source and commercial tools. You should feel excited to learn new tools.
Now, you have decided on the tool, using your creativity, design how you want to present your data and the solutions. You should have a good understanding of Data Visualization principles. Have a mental picture of the final product. If you are comfortable using pen and paper to sketch the visualization, do that. Remember, data visualization is an iterative process. There is no one-all-solution. You can tackle the problem from different angles.
Your eye-for-detail will help you in finding insights which are sometimes hidden.
Choose appropriate charts to present the data. Data Visualization need not be always charts, it could be a comic or an infographic as well. You should have a good understanding of visual vocabulary.
Decide on the medium of presentation. This should be driven by the question as to whom you are presenting it to. Presentation could be on a power point or an excel spreadsheet as well. There is no rule that the presentation medium has to be fancy. The success of the presentation depends on the key takeaways from the data.
Ok, we have come to the final stage of our skill list. This is the most important skill to have ‘Story-telling’. This one skill will set you apart as a skilled professional. All the effort you have put in acquiring, processing, designing data will be of no use if you fail to show the audience the key takeaway from the data. Be a good Storyteller.

Note: This article is purely based on my knowledge and experience. These skills by no means comprehensive. There will always be a new skill to learn. To the many experts out there who would like to add any other skill I might have missed, please feel free to do so.