Data Visualization Top Trends For 2017
Swedish academic and medical doctor Hans Rosling’s death earlier this year at the age of 68 was a tragic loss for the data community. He inspired many into careers within data visualization by seeking to dispel the myth that data and information are inherently boring, once saying that, ’Having the data is not enough, I have to show it in ways people both enjoy and understand.’
It is partly his contribution that has seen data visualization recognized as an important feature within business. A recent Business2community survey of data professionals found that the data science skill with the highest correlation to project success was data mining and visualization tools. The discovery of novelty is a wonderful thing, but is entirely pointless to a business if decision makers can’t be convinced of its existence and take appropriate action. Data visualization is the best way of doing this, engaging decision makers with a visual narrative that leads them to the insight. It also shows the quality of the data, revealing if your dataset is incomplete by easily displaying where data is missing on the report, and whether it’s valid – with a quick, preliminary visualization on collected data showing trends that indicate problems in the complete data.
Data visualization is constantly evolving, with the technology improving dramatically over the last decade. This year, we are set to see further advancements, with an extremely range of exciting new directions. We asked a number of experts what they thought would be the most significant trends in the field.
According to research firm IDC, the market for augmented and virtual reality is expected to grow from $5.2 billion in 2016 to $162 billion in 2020. This is being driven by tech companies like Facebook-owned Oculus, who are making great leaps in the consumer market. Immersive data visualization offers easier pattern recognition in big data sets and more intuitive data understanding. Unlike conventional data visualization models that rely on two axes in a spreadsheet, VR allows users to walk around and look at the data from multiple angles, comparing any number of different factors at the same time. VR works because it focuses your entire field of vision, allowing you to concentrate exclusively on the objective. In early experiments, researchers found that users who interacted with the data through VR reported better retention of perceived relationships within the data than when viewing it through two dimensional data visualization tools.
The possibilities offered by VR are huge, and nowhere is it more important to businesses than data visualization. The naturalistic way it allows people to interact with virtual objects, the ability it affords individuals to experience the data through all senses – touch, sound, and even smell – mean that there are many opportunities yet to be explored, and data visualization companies should start preparing.
‘Recent progress in human-computer interaction (HCI) (with the support of computer vision and virtual reality) indicates that it is time to transform the way a user experiences a visualization. Multi-touch gestures, touchless interactions etc. are almost commonplace now. We are probably not far from a time when a person can actually walk into the projection of a 3D visualization (a holograph) and modify it.’
‘In the longer term, immersive experiences like AR and VR. Data visualization is extremely relevant to immersive visual experiences. It makes no sense to communicate anything but the simplest data points in text or verbally in a virtual, richly visual environment.
