Design your way

Are you familiar with data visualization tools?

The first thing that comes to our mind when someone mentions data visualization is bar pies and chart tools, alike those we’ve been creating in Microsoft Excel for years.

Business intelligence, however, evolved beyond our craziest expectations, and provided us with an array of modern methodologies to process and to visualize data.

These systems range from simple infographic builders to advanced systems that enable direct querying from multiple sources, and analyze billions of data rows in a matter of seconds. On a market like this, it will be a tough task to find an appropriate system for your needs.

To facilitate the process, this article analyzes the importance of digitized data processing, and puts forward the best data visualization tools to consider this year.

Here are few data visualization tools

Infogram

The first of these data visualization tools is Infogram. Infogram is one of world’s best known online inforgraphics tool that also helps create accurate and understandable charts. You can use its limited version for free, or purchase any of the two paid packages with over 200 maps, icons, and private sharing features.

The interface is a no-brainer, and charts are designed within minutes. The only bug customers mention is that their logos modify each time they embed interactive charts on their websites (happens only in the free version).

Plotly

Plotly was developed for graphing and web-based data analytics, and offers a solid library of chart types and social-sharing features. All of its elements are elegant and professional – once your data is inside, you can customize any aspect that could enhance their looks, including the legends, notes, layouts, and axes.

ChartBlocks

As indicated by the name, ChartBlocks allows users to build charts online. These charts are rather basic and limited, but the system still covers all common types organizations need to arrange their most important data. A distinctive benefit is that ChartBlocks pulls in data from several external sources, including local databases and spreadsheets. The charts can later on be embedded on websites and social media, or shared as PNG and SVG files.

Tableau

Tableau Public may as well be the leading BI and data processing platform in recent years, and an awesome productivity bundle that assembles graphs, charts, maps, and similar data visualization tools under the same roof. It is available for free, and lets you embed all types of charts on your websites. If lacking inspiration, you can check their gallery of visualization templates, and choose one that will work for you.

What distinguishes Tableau from its competitors is the quality of graphics and charts, which is why we believe you should definitely give it a second look. Excellent paid versions for additional functionalities are also available.

Datawrapper

Datawrapper is another one of these data visualization tools. With all CSV data uploaded to the system or pasted directly inside the field, you can trigger Datawrapper to geneate lines, bars, and other similar visualizations. Datawrapper is the favorite tool of many news and reporting organizations, as they need a dynamic system that will enhance their posts with live graphs and charts. Using Datawrapper is easy, but you can still check out some of the excellent tutorials available online.

Visage

Visage’s developers didn’t always agree on how to build a data visualization platform, but they were unanimous when it came to their product’s target audience – everyone. According to them, data intelligence bundled in a beautiful package should not be the gift of few financially powerful agencies and organizations, but a tool that even small businesses and start-ups can afford. The tool was developed in 2009, by NewYork’s industry leader Column Five.

Visgif

What if we told you that there is a way to combine accurate data visualizations with creative, animated gifs? This is made possible by the Visgif experimental platform, which makes use of animated GIFs to engage viewers and make information visualization techniques more understandable to non-techie audiences. It also supports a Google Chrome extension for the user to capture and share content as a GIF image.

Sketch

Sketch is a proficient digital design platform for Mac users, supplying them with the speed, flexibility, and power they need packed in a streamlined and user-friendly package. Designers can now focus on what genuinely matters to them – their designs. Sketch helps them do their job right at every stage, in particular as it offers Art boards and multipage support. Other popular features are the shared styles and symbols, thanks to which designers can locate and reuse elements they’ve already created. They won’t be challenged to create even complex shapes, as Sketch gives them first-class vector tools and layer styles for Boolean operations. As expected, the platform is based entirely on vector workflows, and can thus turn every design into a masterpiece.

Scriptographer

Scriptographer is the classic Adobe illustrator scripting plugin that lets you expand the functionality of this system with JavaScript language. It is the number-one choice of non-traditional designers looking for advanced tools and capabilities.

Sankey Diagram

The professional Sankey Diagram drawing platform will offer a plethora of one-of-a-kind possibilities: its diagrams are interactive, and come with moving flows and nodes. For instance, they will display flows whose width is absolutely proportional to their flow, and where each element can be tweaked and edited upon need.

Paper Js

Paper.js is the leading framework for vector graphic scripting you can find for free, built and running on top of HTML5 Canvas. It is recognizable by its clutter-free Document Object/Scene Graph modelling, and the variety of Bezier curves that make working with vector graphics a breeze for inexperienced users. All elements come packed on a hassle-free interface, and work seamlessly with Adobe CS6 and newer versions.

Pixcone

PixCone is the pioneer of data-driven inforgraphics, and a really powerful web editor that gives users total freedom to customize their infographics. Using it, you can rearrange your images, edit charts and canvas shapes in the last-minute, and add elements of your own. Among other things, you will also be able to add text in different fonts, sizes, and styles.

Infographics Presence

If you need a 100% live editor for your infographics, look no further than Infographics Presence. This platform drives infographics with a unique and modern creation technology, where you won’t have to preview, refresh, or reload anything in advance. The changes you made will be instantly visible, and display in a live layout on your page.

Infographics Presence will also supply you with different infographics elements, and work around several interesting shortcuts for you to customize them. Your possibilities to create beautiful content and engage your audience are simply unlimited.

Datylon

Datylon’s target audience are creative designers, who will for the first time be able to turn charts and maps into beautiful works of art. The analytic heavy-lifting is to be left entirely in the hands of analysts, who will have their data ready to use and arranged in story templates. All of the stories can then be shared among contributors and embedded on websites and applications.

Easelly

Easelly is a platform that enables users to create and distribute ‘vhemes’ (visual ideas and custom themes). All you need to do is to drag-and-drop your vheme onto the canvas, and turn it into an operable idea. As simple as that!

Adobe Illustrator

Adobe Illustrator also holds the reputation of its dev company’s top rated creative suite, being a super-powerful and dynamic platform that will help you create staggering electronic illustrations. While it is commonly accepted that statistical tools are the best fit for creating graphs, it is only visual tools like Adobe Illustrator that offer the features and capabilities to make those graphs work in favour of a business. With this tool, you will have total control over your existing graphs, as well as a possibility to create new, hand-crafted inforgraphics. Here are some examples and references you can use: Billion-Dollar-A-Gram, Literary Organism, and Visualisations tagged with Adobe Illustrator.

Affinity Design

Affinity Designer is a smooth, fast, and very precise vector graphic designer for Mac users. It is the preferred system of marketers and website owners, fully equipped with icons, layouts, and other creative UI elements.

D3.js

D3.js, or Data Driven Documents, is one of the first names to ring a bell in the data visualization niche. All of us have at least once seen a beautiful chart or diagram rendered with D3, having in mind that the tool supports and uses SVG, CSS, and HTML. There is virtually no visualization D3 cannot produce, and the best part of the story is that it will produce it absolutely for free.

Note that D3 won’t blend that easily with your prebuilt charts, but that won’t be a problem with all out-of-the box chart templates collated in its gallery. What could be slightly more concerning is the steep learning curve, and limited compatibility (IE9 or higher). For this reason we suggest you to test it with older browsers before you decide to invest in it.

FusionCharts

FusionCharts is the crown of data visualization, and one of the most sophisticated, premium chart-and-map libraries to purchase nowadays. It supports more than 90 charts and 965 maps, and keeps innovating its service to keep users in line with recent trends. You can apply it on all standard and modern browsers, from IE6 onwards.

FusionCharts offers support for XML and JSON data formats, and allows you to export JPEG, PDF, PNG, and SVG charts. The tool is simply ideal for business users who need exclusive and rich dashboards, and inspiring demos.

FusionCharts’ impeccable reputation derives from the fact that maps and charts display well wherever accessed, and that the interactions with them are streamlined and highly customizable. All of this comes at a price comparably higher to the one of similar tools, but the investment is more than recommended for those who can afford it.

Chart.js

Chart.js is one of the tiniest, yet best known open-source chart libraries that supports 6 basic chart types: bar, radar, pie, polar, line, and doughnut. This combination doesn’t come as a surprise, having in mind that these types are commonly paired to accomplish a single project. For larger and more complex applications, however, we’d still recommend you toopt for more advanced libraries such as FusionCharts and Google Charts.

Chart.js makes use of HTML canvas elements to render responsive, flat-designed charts, and offers plenty of developing documentation available online.

Google Charts

Google Charts renders SVG/HTML5 charts to ensure cross-platform portability and cross-browser compatibility for Android and iOS users. The platform uses VML to support several older IE versions.

All commonly built chart types are already covered, including pies, bars, areas, and gauges. As this is a Google product, you can expect a familiar and friendly environment to work in, and plenty of premade templates you can tweak in line with your business specifications.

Highcharts

Highcharts is also a frontrunner in the charting arena which builds advanced maps and charts in a fashion similar to FusionCharts. Its best known feature is Highstock, a handy package full of stock charts considerably richer in detail than their traditional counterparts.

With Highcharts, you can export your charts as JPG, SVG, PDF, and PNG files. You can also access the product’s demo section to find some interesting chart templates. If you’re a non-commercial user, Highchart will be available for free. Businesses, on the other hand, can deploy it against a reasonably-priced single-payment license.

Leaflet

Popular developer Vladimir Agafonkin built Leaflet to let users prepare interactive maps for mobile screens. The first thing you will notice about it is the extremely small size (nothing more than 33kb), which still covers all important mapping features. To render maps in a way which suits all users, Leaflet uses both CSS3 and HTML5, and functions impeccably on mobile and desktop platforms.

You can also add features and expand its functionality with many different plugins, including heatmaps and animated markers. This is why Leaflet is a number-one choice for all users looking to embed maps in their apps or websites.

dygraphs

diygraphs is a JavaScript based, open-source charting library able to process huge data sets. It is very customizable, flexible, and fast, and works well on any major browser (IE8 included). Using it, you will also be part of a large and active community, and exchange experience eto leverage the most of what it can do for you.

dygraphs has already defined its use-case niche, and may not respond to all of your needs. Nevertheless, you can find some extra space for it and keep it in reserve, as it will certainly be useful for larger sets in future. Check the vendor’s demo to understand how this product works.

Raw

Raw developers like to call their product ‘the missing link between spreadsheets and vector graphics’, and they are in their full right to do so. The platform was developed and designed on top of D3.hs, and offers a very user-friendly interface where you don’t even have to register. The tool is also an open-source one, and you don’t have to pay in order to use it.

Raw’s library is still the best a free chart library can get, with a total of 16 chart types to consider, and in-browser data processing. Regardless of Raw being free and community-managed, it still guarantees top-class data protection, and lets users expand it in all desired manners (even to accept new and custom layouts).

Timeline JS

Timeline JS, as you probably concluded by now, is developed to draft functional and beautiful timeliness, and spare users the effort and coding expertise usually associated with this process. The tool is open-source and free, which is why it is used by thousands of companies worldwide. On its large list of prominent users, you will also find names such as Radiolab and Time.

Creating a timeline with Timeline JS will be very easy, as they system allows you to embed media coming from all external sources, and supports YouTube, Vimeo, Flickr, Vine, Twitter, Google Maps, Dailymotion, SoundCloud, Wikipedia, and many similar platforms.

Of all the data visualization tools, how do we choose the best?

Once a decision to purchase a BI system is laid on the table, executives face their next, much more serious challenge – the significant gaps and differences between different data processing tools. They soon realize that each system focuses on a different scope of data, utilizes different sources, and focuses on different aspects of interaction with data.

Therefore, it is immensely difficult to get a system cut-and-ready for your business, and you have to check in detail its features and functions.

The first thing to check is definitely the type of visualization it supports, and compare those to the data you are collecting and the ways in which you would like to see it displayed. To be sure, use the vendors’ free trials and put the system in action with some real-time data. This will matter especially to companies that have standardized their data visualization procedures, and wouldn’t like to see it rendered in a different way.

Even if so, we recommend you to give new systems a chance, as you may actually like their fresh visualization methods, and activate them to unlock information you didn’t know you possessed.

Next, examine the data formats supported by the query tools. Ideally, you should get a large list of those instead of few basic ones such as SQL/NoSQL, and be provided access to specific app integrations such as SAP financials or Oracle. The best BI systems will integrate easily with leading email services and social media, as well as CRMs, marketing platforms, and similar business process management tools.

When it comes to Big Data processing, your first concern should be whether the system supports Hadoop or not.

Thirdly, get a clear picture of the tool’s ability to drill down to detail. Next to first-tier querying, what will that system demand to get to the bottom of your data sources? Can it examine in detail live data visualizations? Certain organizations will be fully dependant on it, as for them this is the guarantee that they will be able to change data stories and scenarios on dot instead of creating new visualizations.

The process is known as re-querying, and can only be completed using the natural language syntax used to create the visualization at the first place. You should keep in mind that the graphics you’re presented with are not simple picture, but live, highly interactive windows displaying your business health and value.

Then, move to the system’s exporting power. You should check whether the queries and visualizations you’ve created can be exported to other systems, and made available to third-party audiences. Your key options here should be to export files in various formats (PDF, JPEG, and CSV), or embed code snippets directly to apps and websites using their open programming interfaces (APIs).

In the best case, data should be displayed equally well on desktop and mobile screens.

Summing up, big data collecting business (or such that are about to embark on such offerings) should settle for nothing less than advanced processing. A good example of such functions is to find a tool that can query front ends for back-end warehouses, and let it handle all of the processing.

It won’t be easy to find such a tool, as back-end warehouses are constantly loaded with data, and may make it cumbersome to span your data sources out of the database. The BI system would have to perform excellently to crunch the query numbers, namely provide in-memory processing and similar first-class capabilities.

It is therefore essential to test-run these data visualization tools with actual complex queries, and see whether they can respond to your needs.

The best way to look at data visualization is it being the front, pretty face of your data intelligence, which may not change how you’re performing, but will give you a solid understanding of why you’re performing that way. Some organizations are fully dependent on such insights, and some don’t need them at all, but BI tools are in any case the most sophisticated systems a business can possess.

If looking for some advanced analytics yourself, this is the right time to examine different self-service BI tools and their data-crunching capabilities. For an even deeper, yet easier overview of how your business is performing, look at data visualization systems as well.

If you liked this article about data visualization tools, you should check out these as well:

The post Data Visualization Tools To Visualize Information appeared first on Design your way.

Source: http://ift.tt/2hN3WUy

Pages

Web Design