Visual Analytics for Smart Decision-Making: Techniques, Applications, and Future Directions

Visual analytics is the scientific discipline that uses methods from data visualization machine learning, and human-computer interaction to help users make sense of complex data. As a tool that turns enormous data sets into clear and engaging visualizations, visual analytics assists decision makers in searching, analyzing, and concluding for multiple fields including business, health care, city planning, and education. This paper aims at discussing major forms of visualization, their uses, limitations and prospects in supporting smart decision making. It emphasizes the application of contemporary technologies like AI, VR/AR, and new promising fields like blockchain and quantum computing that define the development of visual analytics. Also, data representation and bias issues are discussed, and the audience is explained that they were excluded due to ethical reasons. The last section of the paper presents the change in the position of visual analytics as a tool that enhances human decisions and the shift in the application of this technology across various fields.