“Policy-oriented organizations have long produced dizzying amounts of statistical content. In the past, rows and rows of data would die a quick death in thick policy reports or inscrutable spreadsheets. Don't let your data fall victim! Today, there are many tools to visualize and share data online.”
Kurt Voelker, Forum One Communications
A couple of weeks ago I blogged about some of the best sources of research data currently available for animal advocates, other than HRC's HumaneSpot.org. Just as important as access to solid research, however, is being able to make sense of the data, and this is often easier with the use of visualization tools. These range from basic charting programs to more sophisticated tools for complex data visualizations that can help identify underlying relationships. Here are some of the best available visualization tools, combining a few of Voelker’s suggestions with some of our own.
Best of the Bunch
Google Chart Generator – Created by developer Jim Allen, the Google Chart Generator is surprisingly simple and powerful, although the user interface can take time to figure out. Also, the generator does not allow users to bulk upload data; instead, one must copy and paste comma-delimited data. Despite that drawback, however, the Google Chart Generator is a good choice for creating quick charts on the fly. It provides the ability to create all basic chart types as well as detailed maps and a dashboard-like chart called the Google-O-Meter.
Ed. note: As of June 2010, the link to the above-described chart generator is no longer available. Users may want to try this Google Chart Generator instead.
Microsoft Excel – It almost seems too obvious, but don’t underestimate the power of Excel’s charting tools in the hands of a skilled user. Getting your data into Excel is usually fairly simple and most people already have the program installed on their computers. Using Excel, you can build anything from basic scatter plots and pie charts to complex dashboards, pivot tables, and interfaces with OLAP databases. While the free spreadsheet programs (e.g., those provided by OpenOffice.org and Google Docs) can do some of these things, their charting capabilities are weaker than Excel’s.
Worthy of Mention
Many-Eyes.com – Many Eyes is a unit within IBM's Collaborative User Experience research group that seeks to “’democratize’ visualization and to enable a new social kind of data analysis.” Many Eyes allows users to explore an existing set of visualizations and to create their own. In addition to the basic types of charts, the website also allows users to create network diagrams, bubble charts, word clouds, and data-driven maps. Finally, Many Eyes is focused on creating dialogue by encouraging sharing and commenting on other visualizations and datasets.
Swivel.com – Similar to Many Eyes, Swivel seeks to allow users to upload data and create visualizations, and to view those created by other users. The user interface for Swivel is somewhat more intuitive, but this is due in part to the fact that it offers fewer visualization types. Swivel offers only the basics, including bar, line, and pie charts, as well as geographical maps. But it remains a good option to quickly and easily create and share charts.
Hohli – The charts feature provided by Hohli also runs off of the Google Charts API. In addition to offering the basic visualization types, however, Hohli also adds radar charts and Venn diagrams. The service also provides a user-friendly interface. While somewhat less powerful than the Google Chart Generator mentioned above, Hohli may be easier for many people to use while still providing most of the functionality.
OnlineChartTool.com – ChartTool is a fairly basic, but well organized visualization resource that provides all of the standard chart types. It also provides a “meter” type that can be used for dashboard purposes and which is more powerful than the Google-O-Meter mentioned above. Of all of the visualization tools mentioned here, ChartTool is probably the easiest to use, yet offers the most control over the look and feel of your chart.
Some Inspiration
While we’re on the topic of data visualization and infographics, check out these sites for some inspiration:
- Information is Beautiful
- Information Aesthetics
- Abduzeedo.com
- Transparency (from Good Magazine)
- Visions.com.ua (text is in Russian)