The following is a brief scan of the landscape of data visualization. It is not intended to be a comprehensive report.
Clay Shirky in Pew Internet report on the future of the internet: "[A]ll numeric and graphic forms of rendering knowledge, from the creation and use of databases to all forms of visual display of data will be in a golden age..."
- Data are certainly not new, and neither is data visualization. But clearly, we are in the midst of something new and significant in the communication of information. Increasing interest in, use and importance of data generally, and data visualization specifically, are being driven by a much broader megatrend: digital. This broader digital trend is, in fact, new.
- As they pertain to the uptake of data visualization, the relevant aspects of the digital megatrend include:
- These have combined to spawn a fundamental shift in the standard unit of information:
From - the static document
To - native digital information (interactive and computational)
- This is where data visualization, in its contemporary digital form, comes into play. It is a key aspect of this shift to digital native information. It is no doubt one of the most significant and recognizable parts of the shift. However, note that native digital information is not only data visualization, and the two are not synonymous.
- In 2010, Sir Tim Berners-Lee predicted that data work would define the future of journalism. The same circumstances underlying Sir Tim's prediction for journalism -- one (struggling) player in the information ecosystem -- also directly affect organizations such as NORC and others that collect, analyze and disseminate data to policymakers and the public. Unlike many in journalism, the public interest research sector already has the subject matter expertise and analytical skills it needs. What it lacks is the necessary talent to render that knowledge in innovative, visual and interactive ways for digital media.
- Going forward, the most successful public interest sector organizations will be those that can effectively merge their existing expertise with the new digital and design skills for communicating it. Most importantly, in my opinion, this will be in the area of interactive data visualization for digital media.
- Modern, digital-native data visualization in the public interest research sector is still in its early stages. It lags far behind players in commercial and non-profit journalism. For the sector writ large, this is a significant problem. However, for select entrepreneurial organizations it represents an enormous differentiating opportunity. It will require real institutional commitments and resource allocations to digital and data visualization innovation.
- Institutional commitments: Executive-level mandate and support to supplement conventional data analysis output (reports, working papers, journal articles) with more innovative digital data presentations. Early and deliberate integration of design, communication and digital programming skill with the research process to fundamentally change the institution's output, not just promote ("disseminate") the same output.
- Resource allocations: Highly skilled personnel - visual designers and coders; either new staff, skill development, or freelance support in the areas of graphic/information design and interactive digital programming.
- Despite financial challenges, the journalism field leads the way in innovative data visualization for digital media.
- "Data journalism" is the area of greatest activity and innovation in data visualization. This is happening in both commercial and non-profit journalism circles.
- There are some clear leaders in the commercial and non-profit space: The New York Times, Guardian, ProPublica, NPR and others.
See also:
- What distinguishes these innovators is an effective integration of traditional subject matter expertise (and/or reporting/research), visual design skill, and true digital programming chops.
- The focus and conference programming of relevant professional organizations such as NICAR and ONA suggest a very strong and growing emphasis on data-driven journalism, data visualization, and digital tool- and skill-building in the industry.
- The following recent developments in the space add to the strong trend in data journalism and data visualization. They include:
- Despite these strong trends and new entrants, the journalism industry is still heavily weighted conventional reporting and writing. New skills in visual design, data visualization and digital programming are in the minority. Most departments are small. This will slow the field's overall development and leave the door open for new competitors.
- Data visualization and digital interfacing is much less innovative in the public interest space.
- Though data collection and analysis have long been central to the research and public interest sectors, the field has not been quick to retool for the modern digital data era.
- However, there is some notable work being done by:
The "news app": a piece of information, in a journalistic organization, built specifically for digital delivery blending visual design, data, narrative and code. News apps are uniquely digital creations, distinct from traditional text articles, stories and blog posts.
The "interactive": often used synonymously with "news apps," "interactive" is a term more likely to be heard outside of the journalism business. The term might also encompass other digital creations that aren't necessarily data visualization -- things like quizzes, timelines, calculators, slideshows, etc.
The "infographic": also sometimes conflated with "interactive" or "news app," infographics are often static visual representations of information comprising narrative, iconography, charts and illustrations. The most common form is the long vertical, narrow, static visual.
The "viz": A broadly-applied shorthand for interactives, news apps, infographics and other visual representations of data.
"Microsite": a multi-page, or multi-feature digital presentation on a single topic, distinct from a traditional institutional web presence. Microsites have their own internal navigation schemes specific to the topic or story, and may include elements of data visualization (static or interactive), multimedia, and text narrative.
"Data journalism": Broadly speaking, the practice of telling news stories with and from data. Data journalism often involves visual and/or interactive renderings of data, thus blends disciplines of visual/information design, web coding skills and writing.
"Data science": more analysis than storytelling. However, data science often involves visual representations of data and elements of web programming. For this reason, some have described the data scientist as part statistician, part coder.
"Stack": The set of tools and programming languages design and digital practitioners use to produce data visualizations and interactives. There are some emerging industry-standard tools of the trade such as D3.js, R, HTML5/JQuery/CSS3, Ruby on Rails, Python, and many others. While the overall trend is toward creating rich digital-native data and information experiences -- the various tools practitioners use to build these experiences will evolve and be replaced by new ones.
#dataviz ("data visualization")
#ddj ("data-driven journalism")
Narrative Visualization (by Edward Segel and Jeffrey Heer at Visualization Lab)
Visualize This by Flowing Data's Nathan Yau
The Functional Art by Alberto Cairo (and recent NICAR presentation)
Interactive Data Visualization for the Web (on D3.js)
The Best American Infographics 2013 by Gareth Cook
Interactive Visualization by Bill Ferster
Infographics by Column Five Media
Book series by Edward Tufte