Data visualization is the art of turning a dataset into a figure that communicates information as efficiently as possible.
We have many shapes at our disposal, and we play with dimensions like position, color, and size to encode this information.
But there's one more dimension that, in my opinion, is becoming much more prevalent:
Interactivity
Since most of the charts we read today live on screens instead of paper, we can use mouse events to bring our charts to life.
That's not new. JavaScript and d3.js have existed for years, allowing us to build interactive graphs. β β(note: I wrote about what d3 is previously)
What's new is that AI is finally making it accessible. It used to be far too complicated, reserved for people willing to invest years of learning.
A new chart type
This week, a student from my d3.js course shared her dashboard for one of the module projects. She created an interactive pattern I'd never seen before.
It's a stacked area chart with 3 groups, but when you hover over a group, the subgroups inside it are revealed and the legend is updated:
I'm not yet 100% sure how much I like it, but I believe it can be really useful in some situation. It would probably be even better with direct labelinb instead of a legend.
What I am sure of is that even though dataviz is essentially infinite in static mode, the world of possibilities becomes 100x broader once you add the interactive layer.
The bottom line
I have mixed feelings about AI and its impact on our world in general, but I'm genuinely excited about its impact on the field of data visualization.
Our field has been limited by technical difficulty for years. Code was the barrier between great design ideas and their realization.
Now I see students working on my d3 course for just a few weeks and creating chart types I hadn't even thought of!
And you, what's the graph you've always wanted to make? What's preventing you from jumping into the world of interactive data visualization?
β Tell me! I read everything and can even point you toward the right tool.
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