Announcing the Release of Odin Chart
Today I am excited to announce the release of Odin Chart for Adobe XD CC!
I’ve been looking forward to writing this blog post because it is my first opportunity to tell the world what Odin Chart is and what it will be. Odin Chart is a tool for creating customizable data visualizations without writing code. It is a tool that has been under development, in some form, for years and one that will continue to undergo changes and improvements to promote a shift in the data-driven design workflow.
Odin Chart for Adobe XD is a plugin that enables you to convert data from raw numbers to a growing list of charts and maps and customize them to your heart’s content. Right now, you can use Odin chart for free. You can check out the website to learn more and see below for a demo.
Before I say more about Odin Chart for Adobe XD and its future iterations, I’d like to talk about how we got to today.
A Data Visualization Generator
Several years ago, I wrote a plugin for Sketch called Sketch Data Studio. I wrote it to save time at my job as a UX designer at a fintech startup. The community took interest in my creation and, by my measure, Sketch Data Studio was a huge success! I eventually got busy with other projects and SDS, unfortunately, was relegated to the back burner.
In the mean time, I had turned my professional focus toward data visualization design and development. Then one day I finally looked at what I had built in Sketch Data Studio. I knew I wanted it to be better, but I hadn’t thought about how until now. The easy answers were a better UI and more chart types. But my new experience made it clear that there was more to the problem than just saving time.
Custom data visualization design options are few and far between and the best ones are far from simple. I took the time to evaluate the data-driven design workflow on a fundamental level and to think about where a tool like Sketch Data Studio could fit in.
Odin Chart Begins
I got to work rethinking the plugin with an eye toward a smooth experience and chart customizability. I even built a v1 prototype that blew the old plugin out of the water functionality-wise. But now there was a new issue — it wasn’t easy to use. The original was actually a smoother experience. I had to rethink it all again.
Right around this time, I was contacted by Adobe. They asked if I’d be interested in developing a tool like Sketch Data Studio, but for Adobe XD. Their timing couldn’t have been better. I’ll skip the details, but Odin Chart development is now supported by the Adobe Fund for Design and the dream is very much alive!
Odin Is Alive
And so here we are today. Odin Chart is real. With this first release, Odin Chart joins the Adobe ecosystem and introduces data visualization design functionality to Adobe XD.
Starting right now, Odin Chart is free to use, enabling users to place a variety of charts using randomly generated data or imported spreadsheet data. Data source options will expand in future releases, as will chart types and customizability. In order to use the plugin, you are required to register with your email address to receive a free activation code — this is mostly to keep track of how many users we have. Longer term, we plan to release professional-tier functionality and charge for its usage, but until then, Odin Chart will continue to be free to use.
Plans for the Future
Expect to see a Sketch version of the plugin before the end of 2018. After the Sketch version is released, things will start changing, but I can’t say more than that :) You can sign up for news about future product releases on the Odin Chart website.
In the mean time, Adobe is offering Adobe XD for free. That means you can try out Odin Chart today, no problem.
If you’ve read this far, you must be as excited as I am about this new beginning! My goal for Odin Chart is to introduce a fundamental change to data visualization design. The Odin Chart plugin is the first step on this journey. Let’s take this first step together and don’t look back!
You can see the plugin in action, sign up to get notified of new releases and register to start using Odin Chart at https://odinchart.com
Tyler Wolf has worked as a data visualization professional for over 6 years. He was a major contributor to nvd3.js, created Sketch Data Studio and is now building Odin Chart.
