Visual Analysis

Visual analysis takes advantage of the uniquely human ability to process images. A simple example of this occurs in a statistical analysis by graphing the standard numerical measures mean, median, and mode. These often reveal meaningful patterns that would be difficult to discern by looking at the numbers alone.

Taking this a step further, visual analysis can take advantage of computing power to process large amounts of raw data into graphics. A person can then review those visualizations to search for possible patterns or relationships in the data. 

In any field dealing with networking, visual analysis is sometimes called link analysis, and can be used to evaluate relationships and patterns in data across multiple devices. A good example is within the field of mobile forensics. Considering the popularity of mobile phones, the ability to detect information from texts, calls, emails, and social media applications is a skill that forensic investigators need to bring to any criminal case.

The advancement of tools enables examiners to quickly create a visual picture of communications, making evidence court-ready in a manner that does not delay prosecutions. Link and visual analysis techniques include visualizing data from multiple devices and analyzing multiple users against a single map based on physical and logical extraction of data and images.

Graphics produced for visual analysis may rely on color, shape, size, location, and relationships to represent aspects of the underlying data. Depending on the data, you could choose between hierarchical (e.g., tree maps) or nonhierarchical (e.g., Venn or Euler diagrams) visualizations. Iterating through different visualization choices on the same data set will make it more likely that the visual analysis will succeed in finding a pattern in the data.

Note: Visual analysis for data analytics should not be confused with visual analysis for artwork, which is the study of the formal elements and other aspects of a work of art.