Exploratory Vs. Explanatory Analysis

ByVidya July 31, 2018November 19, 2025

When working with data, it is important to understand the purpose of data analysis. Though the end result of a data analysis process may be a single visualization, there are various stages this analysis goes through.

Broadly, there are 2 types of data analysis:

Exploratory analysis – Exploratory analysis is often the first step of data analysis. Here we get familiar with data, ask questions, visualize the data in a number of forms, look for relationships between the variables, look for outliers, patterns and trends in data. The output of exploratory analysis is usually only for the us, the data analysts.

Learn more about basic statistics for exploring data :

Explanatory analysis – Explanatory analysis is what happens when we have identified 1 or 2 interesting observations in the data. We now create the visuals to present our findings. The output of an explanatory analysis is generally for the public

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