Em um breve parágrafo, um bom resumo sobre visualização.
Visualization provides a powerful means of making sense of data. By mapping data attributes to visual properties such as position, size, shape, and color, visualization designers leverage perceptual skills to help users discern and interpret patterns within data. A single image, however, typically provides answers to, at best, a handful of questions. Instead, visual analysis typically progresses in an iterative process of view creation, exploration, and refinement.
HEER, Jeffrey. SHNEIDERMAN, Ben. Interactive Dynamics for Visual Analysis. ACM Queue, 2012. Disponível em <http://queue.acm.org/detail.cfm?id=2146416>, acessado em 07/03/2012.