Data is a collection of facts, numbers, characteristics, measurements or any other piece of information in any form. These values can be obtained from measurements, observations, interview or analysing and are usually expressed in either numerical or symbolic form. Data is the basic input to computer systems in that it is the material that is processed to produce information which can be used in many areas.
In the course of software development especially in the web and mobile application, data is usually presented in the form of structured entities. These structures assist in adding meaning to data since data can be stored and organised systematically with regard to certain references that can be easily accessed, manipulated and analyzed. For example, in a database, data may be divided into tables where each table contains information about a certain entity, such as customers, products or transactions. This organization is useful in enhancing the data handling and processing as well as retrieval techniques thus allowing one to manipulate huge volume of data.
Data is not confined to a certain discipline, it is found in every field of study and work ranging from science, economics, healthcare and many others. In these fields data is a valuable asset in decision making, modelling and analysis of the situation and trends. With the influx of data and especially the big data, the conventional approaches to data analysis are insufficient to cope with the amount of data that is generated.
This is where the field of data science comes in as the savior. Data science is the process of using machine learning to analyze large data sets and gain useful information from it. Machine learning, which is one of the main branches of data science, is a process that allows the computer to operate and make decisions based on the data given to it and then adjust its decision-making process as it receives more data. This capability is especially relevant within the big data environment in which ordinary tools are unable to handle the growing amount of data that is measured in petabytes.
In the field of web and mobile development, data science and machine learning are utilized for improving the user interface, for improving the speed of the application, and for presenting the content to the user in a way that suits him. Such technologies help in understanding the user interactions and their behavior which can further be used to design and develop applications. For example, a mobile application may employ machine learning algorithms to offer products that may be of interest to the user based on his/her purchase history, while a web application may employ machine learning algorithms to rearrange the layout of the page based on the traffic flow.
Therefore, it can be stated that data is a valuable commodity today as it forms the basis of decision making and development of new technologies. This is because; through traditional analysis or through the use of modern tools such as machine learning, data management and analysis is crucial in all disciplines. Since data will keep on increasing in the future, the techniques and technologies that are being utilized to process and analyze it will also change, which will lead to the advancement of technology and increase in human knowledge.