I don't have a lot of practical day-to-day use for standard deviation and possess a vague understanding of it. Like the author, I resort to Wikipedia periodical

I don't have a lot of practical day-to-day use for standard deviation and possess a vague understanding of it. Like the author, I resort to Wikipedia periodically and go away with no stronger an intuitive sense than when I began. I think the author offers a great explanation for the advantages of a more intuitive understanding. This article and its simple graphics definitely provided a more intuitive sense of the concept. I'll wait a while for the statistics experts to weigh in here before I write it to my cognitive hard disk. :)