Dataviz in OSS

Data visualisation is a growing field of expertise. It combines the skills of the designer with those of the developer and the journalist, to create interactive layouts that help people explore data for themselves.”
Olly Arbor
.

Do you have a dataviz expert on your OSS team?

If ever there were a field that needed dataviz, OSS would be it. OSS collect ridiculously large volumes of data. But masses of data doesn’t create insight by itself. It needs to be arranged to tell a story. It needs to be presented so as to be accessible.

Many OSS are clearly designed by developers who are not UI (User Interface) or dataviz experts and may possibly even be colour-blind.

Conversely, David McCandless, who is renowned for actually being a dataviz expert, suggests that data/information visualisation should consist of:
» Concepting and the generation of good, interesting ideas
» Researching and curating juicy data
» Executing and selecting appropriate & effective visualisations
» Designing and beautifying impactful charts & diagrams

…as opposed to getting a big pile of data and throwing it in a line or bar graph, which seems to be the pseudo-standard OSS approach.

I’d love to hear your opinions on which OSS products provide the most beautiful and informative visualisations of the data they collect.

Another reason why the OSS industry needs more yellow/green thinkers??  😉

If this article was helpful, subscribe to the Passionate About OSS Blog to get each new post sent directly to your inbox. 100% free of charge and free of spam.

Our Solutions

Share:

Most Recent Articles

No telco wants to buy an OSS/BSS

When you’re a senior exec in a telco and you’ve been made responsible for allocating resources, it’s unlikely that you ever think, “gee, we really

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.