What Techniques Are Used to Analyse Data?

Data analysis is, simply put, what lies behind informed decisions and insights.

The analysis can help us make comparisons, describe a situation, or understand the reasons behind events, and sometimes, even hint at what’s to come.

In this section, we’ll explore what data analysis is, its methods, and its importance.

At its most basic, you might just spend a couple of minutes in Excel, sorting data, finding averages, or plotting a bar chart. Often, such simple analyses can drive decisions.

Other times, the data is more unmanageable and complicated. Perhaps it is unstructured data such as text, sound, images or video.

To get more complex data to reveal the secrets they hide, we can use tools and techniques such as machine learning and data mining.

These aren’t beginner topics. Reaching a certain level requires skills in mathematics, statistics, and programming. Nevertheless, it is useful for everyone to be aware of the possibilities that exist, and the principles one works by.

So, let’s dive in and see what we can truly gain from data analysis.