What domain-specific visualizations should I learn?
Explanation
Different fields rely on specific visual techniques to uncover insights and communicate results effectively. Understanding these domain-specific visuals can greatly enhance the relevance and impact of your analysis.
- 🧬 Bioinformatics
- Heatmaps – Visualize gene expression or microbial abundance across conditions
- PCA plots – Reduce dimensionality and reveal clustering or separation
- Volcano plots – Identify statistically significant features in differential analysis
- Heatmaps – Visualize gene expression or microbial abundance across conditions
- 🏥 Medical & Health Sciences
- Kaplan-Meier curves – Model and visualize survival over time
- ROC curves – Evaluate the performance of binary classifiers
- Forest plots – Summarize effect sizes across multiple studies (meta-analysis)
- Kaplan-Meier curves – Model and visualize survival over time
- 🌍 Environmental & Climate Science
- Time series plots – Track variables like temperature, rainfall, or CO₂ levels over time
- Spatial maps – Show geographic distributions (e.g., heatmaps, choropleths)
- Ridge plots – Compare distributions across regions, time, or climate zones
- Time series plots – Track variables like temperature, rainfall, or CO₂ levels over time
- 📈 Business & Finance
- Candlestick charts – Represent stock price movements with open-high-low-close patterns
- Funnel charts – Visualize conversion steps in sales or user journeys
- Treemaps – Show proportional relationships in portfolios or business metrics
- Candlestick charts – Represent stock price movements with open-high-low-close patterns
- 🎓 Education & Survey Research
- Likert scale bar plots – Summarize responses to attitudinal questions
- Grouped bar charts – Compare metrics by demographic, school, or region
- Word clouds – Visualize the most frequent terms in open-text responses
- Likert scale bar plots – Summarize responses to attitudinal questions
These visuals are not just aesthetic — they are communication tools tailored to the data patterns and questions common in each field.