Industry Trends in Data Visualization
The data visualization industry must adapt and change with the ways audiences engage, experience and absorb information. Because of this, industry trends are in constant flux. Over the past year, we’ve observed some of the major trends sweeping data-driven visualizations including the use of data visualization in storytelling, mobile-centered design, social share friendliness and public access.
Data-Driven Storytelling
As attention spans dwindle, being able to convey data visually is an important requirement of many news articles. This can be seen in everything from CBC’s coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic charts to climate crisis graphics. Data visualization allows audiences to emotional resonate with numbers and statistics that would otherwise be impersonal, formal and less human-centered.
Mobile Centered Design
54.8% of web traffic stems from mobile users, rapidly increasing in recent years, according to oberlo.com. Data visualizations that are optimized for mobile devices have never been more relevant. More and more visualizations are creating mobile versions. This can be seen in the recent expansion of Collection Science’s PhileSpace into the mobile sphere.
Public Access
Data visualizations are becoming more accessible to the general public, allowing more and more people to be better informed and equipped to make decisions. Gone are the days where data was only accessible to data scientists and analysts; data visualizations are everyone’s business. This can be seen in the Canada’s Energy Regulator’s project “Exploring Canada’s Energy Future.”
Social Media Sharing
Being able to convey large amounts over social media, despite post limits and minimized real estate. It is hard to dismiss the importance of social sharing as, as of 2020, 3.96 billion people use social media worldwide. Data visualization helps enrich the social media experience by bringing social media to larger audiences.
Incorporating Other Advanced Technologies like AR/VR and AI
The data visualization industry isn’t the only one that’s changing — the rest of the tech industry is adapting and merging in order to produce better, stronger and more compelling visualizations and more. Giorgia Lupi’s Building Hopes incorporates augmented reality in order to create digital sculptures in user-defined locations.
Emerging Data Visualization Tools
With the growth of data visualizations in the public sphere, more and more companies sought solutions to create their own materials. This can be seen in the rise of Tableau, Qlik and Metabase. These new tools allow for in-house creation of simple visualizations.
New trends are constantly emerging, while others remain a constant focal point in the overall design of data visualizations. Looking to launch a data visualization of your own? Check out our site to get in touch with our talented team of designers and developers.
Check out goodfirms.co and promotionworld.com for more information on these trends and others.
