Data Visualization Predictions for 2014

By: Shilpi Choudhury

17 Experts Share their Views

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—Henry D. Hubbard, 1939

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There is a magic in graphs. The profile of a curve reveals in a flash a whole situation—the life history of an epidemic, a panic, or an era of prosperity. The curve informs the mind, awakens the imagination, convinces.

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In an age where data is considered the fuel for growth,

here’s how industry leaders see the evolution of data

visualization in the coming months…

In an age where data is considered the fuel for growth,

here’s how industry leaders see the evolution of data

visualization in the coming months…

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“Combining human intelligence with existing sources of data

”Pallav Nadhani CEO & Co-Founder, FusionCharts

I see a trend towards data visualizations getting simpler but more effective and pervasive on mobile, for consumption by on-the-go workforce. I also see a new paradigm of data visualization components to aid business users find co-relations and patterns in datasets, through visual exploration. A growing trend to combine human intelligence with existing sources of data (transaction, operational etc.) to form a more accurate representation and to tell the complete story is on the cards too.

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I believe that data visualization is one of the most important trends in the last few years and it will be increasingly more important. As we collect more and more information, we will have to find effective ways to visualize data in a way that turns raw numbers into meaningful stories.

Raw numbers to meaningful stories

Daniel WaisbergAnalytics Advocate, Google

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”“Solutions will evolve to put more focus, more weight on the

key figure and the related key message (eg: is it positive, negative), charts (bar, line, etc.) become an instrument giving more details on the first Key Figure. Typical example is tiles—each tile contains only one element (number, percentage, etc) and further details are accessible by drilling. The other trend—linked to the first one—is authoring; Give the possibility to the end user to make his own view based on moving upfront the most relevant tiles, without technical awareness.

Possibility of authoring

David PoissonBI Director, Global IT, SAP

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“The industry is moving from cumbersome and time-consuming processes that require crunching large quantities of data over months to identify high-value audiences to a space that brings together data and content. A space where marketers can gather actionable insights in a fractional space of time: between the action—every swipe, tag, drag and click—and the decision—to buy, to subscribe, to join, or to leave the page. Marketers will embrace rocket science to understand their customer. A system that will empower them to track a customer’s behavior, preempt his need and give him something relevant. This involves assimilating all the information, filtering it as per the interests of the visitor, understanding his requirement and delivering that onto an omni channel environment including mobile devices, tablets, kiosks and smart TV in a fraction of a second which we at Adobe call the last millisecond.

Delivery at the last millisecond

Umang BediManaging Director, South Asia Region, Adobe Systems

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”“Data visualization is just a means to disperse the information we

gather using data. In that sense, I see more and more data consumers asking for customized visual representation. Infographics is increasingly becoming popular because people are finding out easier and different ways to visually represent the data. No data is created equal and we shouldn't fit it into standard lines and graphs.

One size fits all

Amit SawhneySr. Product Manager, SlideShare

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”“I see a move towards smarter visualizations―displays

showing relative changes over time that can point out the interesting signals that you should be paying attention to. I also see notifications and generated insights playing a larger role. As the amount of data we have increases, it becomes difficult to stay on top of it all. The display needs to ease some of this analytical burden from the user by discovering and surfacing anomalies without the user having to dig for them.

Smarter visualizations & generated insights

Robby MacdonellHead of Product Development, RescueTime

”“The industry is growing rapidly and I expect it to

continue in the coming years, especially after the push given by Big Data. The Internet has plenty of data that need to be analyzed and presented properly for them to be actionable.

Actionable insights

Francisco Sáez CEO, FacileThings

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”“With the constant growth of technology, we’ve seen

an explosion in so-called big data. Everything around us is constantly producing data, and we need a way to make sense and relate the numbers to the real world. Data visualization is going to be the key to this, helping us make sense of an increasingly connected world.

Relate to the real world

David MyttonFounder & CEO, Server Density

”“There is going to be an explosion of data visualization methods and products, and a few clear winners who will ultimately subsume them.

Winner takes it all

Kristian RussellCreative Director, Simplee

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”“In 2014, I see a trend towards more customizable and responsive layouts.

Customizable and responsive

Kaspars UpmanisFounder, CakeHR

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”“I think the data visualizations in 2014 will become even more interactive than before, as the tools that lay the groundwork for it have greatly improved. The visualizations will also become a lot more context aware and dynamic.

Interactive, context aware & dynamic

Matic BitencCEO, Toshl Finance

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”“Data visualization should evolve beyond single systems.

There's so much of data that hides beneath the interaction points of different multiple systems in an organization. For example, CRM and Support Ticketing Tool. As an organization, we're not just interested in how these teams and systems are working, but also want to know metrics such as how different is support-seeking behavior for our larger clients v/s smaller. I'm hoping future technologies connect with such systems more or less automatically and derive useful metrics and visualization automatically.

Beyond single systems

Paras ChopraFounder & CEO, Wingify

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”“Some of the current trends like collaborative/social sharing and

mashing up programming languages and libraries (Python, R, JavaScript), especially JavaScript libraries for iPython Notebooks will continue. But I see more and more startups working on visual analytics, focusing more on exploration than presentation and monitoring (drill-down, filtering, cross-linking, querying). We will also see more domain specific apps, visualization for mobile and wearable platforms and leveraging WebGL and shaders.

I personally would be glad to see the end of the confusion between infographics (of the dumb marketing type) and information visualization.

More focus on exploration than monitoring

Christophe ViauData Visualization Engineer, Plotly

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”“I think that companies are starting to embrace Data

Visualization as a new phase of data analysis. In the past it was fine to just provide someone with a spreadsheet full of numbers. Not in today's environment of having to do more with less resources. The days of having a staff review the data and make recommendations are behind us. Today you need to be able to view the data and in just a few minutes determine what action you need to take. That is the power of Data Visualization. That is why leading companies are embracing Data Visualization. 

More with less

Brad RoseProject Manager Data Visualization, Nestle USA

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”“I believe we will continue to see the expansion of data

visualization works that are driven by a particular narrative. While this storytelling with data is exemplified by news organizations like the New York Times, the idea will be incorporated further into other visualization channels. Emotion will also play a larger role in choices of topics and design. Visualizations will strive to get people to really feel the impact and weight of the data behind the graphics.

Feel the impact

Jim VallandinghamData Visualization Engineer, Nordstrom

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“General culture shifts brought on by an overabundance of data, multimedia content, and jam packed social media streams has made visual communication more important than ever. Effectively reaching an audience now requires quality visual content. Data visualization is a great piece of this puzzle, working as a way to visually deliver insight. In 2014, it will be important for the visualization industry to improve visual communication so that all the insights gathered from our wealth of data can make out of our computers and into our minds.

From the computer to the mind

Drew SkauVisualization Architect, Visual.ly

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”“As for the immediate future of data visualization, I think that

users have become accustomed to—and will demand more—personal data that is actionable and easy to understand. With wearable tech allowing users access to hyper-personal data pertaining to their coming and going and general health, this type of information will become more of a novelty. Users will want to see creative amalgamations of data reflecting their health and daily routines that give them a unique sense of self and accomplishment...naturally they will want to share this information with others in dynamic ways.

Actionable hyper-personal data

Josh TysonManaging Editor, UX Magazine

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Add your comments below.

Where do you see the data visualization industry headed in the coming months?

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Need more such insights on data visualization? Check out the FusionCharts blog