Arranging
Data can be arranged in two common forms: low to high or high to low, also known as ascending and descending order. Arranging data is useful for ranking observations or groups in an order that makes it easier for us to understand. When I look at the top 5 most sold items, I know that they are what brings traffic to a store. Then, imagine that the third best-selling item in terms of count is, in fact, the product that makes the most revenue. That could change our strategy, couldn’t it?
When looking at the other side of the rank, the tail, the bottom 5 items in terms of the number of items sold could be potential candidates to remove from the shelves, as they probably won’t bring much revenue to the business.
This simple example explains why arranging data is important when exploring data. But arranging is also an important part of data wrangling when visualizing data because it quickly pulls our eyes to the maximum point, from where we can read the rest...
