SVD can be understood from a geometric sense for square matrices as a transformation on a vector.
Consider a square n x n matrix M multiplying a vector v to produce an output vector w:
w = M*v
The singular value decomposition M is the product of three matrices M=U*S*V, so w=U*S*V*v. U and V are orthonormal matrices. From a geometric transformation point of view (acting upon a vector by multiplying it), they are combinations of rotations and reflections that do not change the length of the vector they are multiplying. S is a diagonal matrix which represents scaling or squashing with different scaling factors (the diagonal terms) along each of the n axes.
So the effect of left-multiplying a vector v by a matrix M is to rotate/reflect v by M’s orthonormal factor V, then scale/squash the result by a diagonal factor S, then rotate/reflect the result by M’s orthonormal factor U.
One reason SVD is desirable from a numerical standpoint is that multiplication by orthonormal matrices is an invertible and extremely stable operation (condition number is 1). SVD captures any ill-conditioned-ness in the diagonal scaling matrix S.