A collection of observations about the state of data visualisation, the trends and potential trajectory of the subject going forward.

1. THE STATE OF THE UNION 2019+
Presented by Andy Kirk
@visualisingdata

2. What will stop or start?
What will improve or decline?
What will increase or decrease?
What will spread or narrow?
What will remain the same?
Expectations
Speculations
Hopes
Fears
Recommendations
Look backwards to
predict forwards
Consult a range of
different viewpoints
Rachel Ara | ‘Cocksure ( is anything ever what it seems? )’

3. “I have no idea where the data visualization field is heading! I
have no idea where I'm heading. I have no idea if I'm even part of
this field. And I also hate making predictions.”
An unnamed but esteemed contributor
Rachel Ara | ‘Cocksure ( is anything ever what it seems? )’

4. COMMUNITY
The fabric of the field
CREATING
How we make them
CREATIONS
What we are making
CONSUMING
How they’re experienced
“THE STATE OF THE ART 2019+” presented by Andy Kirk

5. CREATIONS
What we are making

6. “We really are in another golden age of visualization”
Leland Wilkinson, Author & Researcher
#1 THE END OF GRAPHICAL AUSTERITY?
“I feel like we're seeing ‘the end of austerity’ in dataviz – a rebound
from the geometric minimalism that's dominated so-called best
practice in recent years... resulting in some genuinely innovative,
beautiful, yet functional work”
Alan Smith MBE, Financial Times

7. #1 THE END OF GRAPHICAL AUSTERITY?
https://web.northeastern.edu/naturalizing-immigration-dataviz/
Pedro Cruz, John Wihbey, Avni Ghael, & Felipe Shibuya |
‘Simulated Dendrochronology of U.S. Immigration’

8. #1 THE END OF GRAPHICAL AUSTERITY?
https://www.studioterp.nl/a-view-on-despair-a-datavisualization-project-by-studio-terp/
Sonja Kuijpers | 'A View on Despair'

9. #1 THE END OF GRAPHICAL AUSTERITY?
https://mapzilla-art.co.uk/2018/10/01/coral-cities-an-ito-design-lab-concept/
Craig Taylor | ‘Coral Cities'

10. #1 THE END OF GRAPHICAL AUSTERITY?
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2018/05/genius-picasso-art-categories-infographic/
Alberto Lucas López | ‘We analyzed
8,000 of Picasso’s works…'

11. #1 THE END OF GRAPHICAL AUSTERITY?
https://xeno.graphics/

12. #1 THE END OF GRAPHICAL AUSTERITY?

13. #1 THE END OF GRAPHICAL AUSTERITY?
https://medium.com/@tophtucker/doing-enterprise-financial-data-visualization-after-data-journalism-3c68861b7f4c

14. #2 EMBRACING IMPRECISION AND SKETCHINESS
https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/politics/iowa-state-fair-candidate-recognition/
Kevin Uhrmacher and Kevin Schaul |
‘They’re clogging up the system: How 59
Iowans see the 2020 Democratic field’

15. #2 EMBRACING IMPRECISION AND SKETCHINESS
Shirley Wu |
‘Taylor Swift is…'
Visualisation by Shirley Wu (As-yet unpublished)

16. https://emotions.periscopic.com/inauguration/
Periscopic | ’Emotions’
#3 GROWTH IN QUALITATIVE ENQUIRY

17. https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/9/28/17914308/kavanaugh-ford-question-dodge-hearing-chart
#3 GROWTH IN QUALITATIVE ENQUIRY
Alvin Chang | ‘Every time Ford and Kavanaugh
answered the question – and didn’t’

18. #4 THE DIFFICULTIES OF EMULATING VS. PLAGIARISING
https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2018/11/03/how-to-forecast-an-americans-vote & https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/08/08/opinion/sunday/party-polarization-quiz.html

19. #4 THE DIFFICULTIES OF EMULATING VS. PLAGIARISING
https://twitter.com/nadiehbremer/status/1088927518843916289

20. #4 THE DIFFICULTIES OF EMULATING VS. PLAGIARISING
“The practitioners of the past had incredible solutions and
no one remembers it. I feel like exploring the past is an act of
rescuing not only their legacy, but also the very shapes and
designs they communicated to their audience. The best of these
we very much should create anew.”
Jason Forrest, Editor of ‘Nightingale’

21. #5 ENVIRONMENTAL VISUALISATION, OUR GREATEST CHALLENGE?
http://www.climate-lab-book.ac.uk/spirals/
Ed Hawkins’ visualisation work

22. #5 ENVIRONMENTAL VISUALISATION, OUR GREATEST CHALLENGE?
https://www.warningstripes.com/
‘Warming stripes’ by
Alexander Radtke

23. #6 IF THERE IS SOMETHING TO SAY, SAY IT
https://digitalblog.ons.gov.uk/2019/01/28/say-what-you-see-the-way-we-write-chart-titles-is-changing/

24. #6 IF THERE IS SOMETHING TO SAY, SAY IT
“Data visualizers should always, always include straightforward,
clarifying headlines, captions and labels on their work.
Telling readers/users what they are looking at may seem
obvious or redundant, but it isn’t.”
Nigel Holmes, Explanation Graphics Designer

25. CONSUMING
How our work is experienced

26. https://www.ft.com/content/80269930-40c3-11e9-b896-fe36ec32aece
#1 SONIFICATION AND AUDIO PRESENTATION
Alan Smith | ‘Sonification: Turning the Yield Curve into Music’

27. #1 SONIFICATION AND AUDIO PRESENTATION
John Burn-Murdoch & Federica Cocco | ‘FT Data Crunch’
Image from https://www.ft.com/ft-data-crunch

28. #1 SONIFICATION AND AUDIO PRESENTATION
Reuters Graphics | ’10 Years On’
https://graphics.reuters.com/FINANCIAL-CRISIS2008/0100805F0BK/index.html

29. Simon Scarr & Marco Hernandez |
’Drowning in Plastic’
https://graphics.reuters.com/ENVIRONMENT-PLASTIC/0100B275155/index.html
#2 RELATABLE

30. #2 RELATABLE
https://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2019/jan/31/measles-outbreaks-us-anti-vaccine-movement
Mona Chalabi | ‘How measles
outbreaks have spread amid
the anti-vaccine movement’

31. https://twitter.com/neilrkaye/status/1129347990777413632
“We are struggling to show the bigger issues [like climate-change]
in a comprehensible manner. I feel that we have to show people that
all these numbers, this big pile of data, are of personal concern…
[but] how to squeeze this big pile into a personal relatable scale? ”
Neil Kaye, UK Met Office
#2 RELATABLE

32. https://twitter.com/neilrkaye/status/1146397613417205761?lang=en
#2 RELATABLE

33. #3 PARTICIPATORY
https://www.theguardian.com/society/ng-interactive/2018/jul/02/nhs-at-70-how-well-do-you-know-the-health-service
Pamela Duncan, Josh Holder and Antonio
Voce | ‘How well do you know the NHS?’

34. Visualisation by TheUpshot https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/02/15/upshot/british-irish-dialect-quiz.html
#3 PARTICIPATORY
Josh Katz | ‘The British
and Irish Dialect Quiz’

35. #4 LESS EXPLORATORY, MORE EXPLANATORY

36. Visualisation by Reuters https://graphics.reuters.com/SPACE-EXPLORATION-NEW-SPACE/0100B03R062/index.html
#4 LESS EXPLORATORY, MORE EXPLANATORY

37. #4 LESS EXPLORATORY, MORE EXPLANATORY
“Now the challenge is: how can we present complex
topics in simple forms. Shifting the responsibility of
communication from the reader to the author…
[moving] from a pull model to a push model ”
Jérôme Cukier, Senior Software Engineer at Uber

38. FiveThirtyEight | ’Forecasting
the race for the House’
#4 LESS EXPLORATORY, MORE EXPLANATORY

39. #5 LITERACY AND ACCESSIBILITY
https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-pushed-aides-for-statement-defending-false-dorian-claims-report-2019-9?r=US&IR=T & https://twitter.com/kennethfield/status/1169616081050193921

40. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/08/29/opinion/hurricane-dorian-forecast-map.html and http://www.thefunctionalart.com/2019/09/explaining-visualizations-in-new-york.html
#5 LITERACY AND ACCESSIBILITY
“Readers often have the unrealistic expectation
that any graphic should be understandable
without effort. We designers have fed that
expectation, and we must stop.”

41. https://twitter.com/jburnmurdoch/status/1133046316349755395
#5 LITERACY AND ACCESSIBILITY
Graphical
accessibility
Visual
accessibility
Subject
accessibility
Technical
accessibility

42. #6 UNCERTAINTY AND TRUST

43. “For me the future of data visualization should be the future of
uncertainty communication”
Jessica Hullman, Assistant Professor, Northwestern University
#6 UNCERTAINTY AND TRUST

44. https://twitter.com/statisticiana/status/1190955333654646787
#6 UNCERTAINTY AND TRUST
By Naomi
Jeffrey

45. CREATING
The materials and methods of making

46. #1 DATA ETHICS: HUMANISM, EQUALITY, TRANSPARENCY
Data is about people or about things that affect people.
Data is captured by people or by methods created by people.
Data is exposed to and is an artefact of biases inherent in people.
Data is used by people who are not infallible.

47. http://giorgialupi.com/data-humanism-my-manifesto-for-a-new-data-wold
#1 DATA ETHICS: HUMANISM, EQUALITY, TRANSPARENCY

48. http://datafeminism.io/
#1 DATA ETHICS: HUMANISM, EQUALITY, TRANSPARENCY

49. https://medium.economist.com/peeling-back-the-curtain-487bd3be0c47 and https://data.fivethirtyeight.com/
#1 DATA ETHICS: HUMANISM, EQUALITY, TRANSPARENCY

50. https://pudding.cool/2018/10/city_3d/
#2 IMMERSIVE VIRTUAL SPACES
We have such powerful technology to enable the recording, plotting
and rendering of millions/billions of spatial data points.
Matt Daniels |
‘Human Terrain’

51. https://time.com/5628880/time-immersive-app-ar-vr/
#2 IMMERSIVE VIRTUAL SPACES

52. https://twitter.com/sara__weber/status/1081950904671240192
#3 NON-TRADITIONAL MATERIALS
Mrs Weber |
‘Rail delay scarf’

53. https://www.amycesal.com/day-doh-viz/popularity-of-international-outlets and https://www.dimayarovinsky.com/#/i-agree/
#3 NON-TRADITIONAL MATERIALS
Amy Cesal |
’Play Doh Viz’
Dima Yarovinsky
| ‘I AGREE’

54. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/08/15/sports/olympics/usain-bolt-mens-100-meters-final.html and https://vis.social/@darenw/99435249311705164
#3 NON-TRADITIONAL MATERIALS
Daren Willman’s
baseball sculptures
New York Times’
Olympics ‘photoviz’

55. http://data-illustrator.com/ & https://charticulator.com/
#4 EXPRESSIVE AND SCALABLE GUI TOOLS

56. https://flourish.studio/ & https://rawgraphs.io/
#4 EXPRESSIVE AND SCALABLE GUI TOOLS

57. https://public.tableau.com/profile/mariona.banyeres#!/vizhome/Migration_IronViz20193rdfeeder/Dashboard2 & https://public.tableau.com/profile/chrisluv#!/vizhome/shared/NTMDZKGZ5
#4 EXPRESSIVE AND SCALABLE GUI TOOLS

58. https://qz.com/1640415/acquisitions-of-tableau-and-looker-show-coming-of-age-for-dataviz/
#5 ENTERPRISE TOOLS FOR THE MASSES

59. #6 PRESERVATION AND ARCHIVING
404 Page Not Found

60. COMMUNITY
The fabric of the field

61. “When people talk about ‘data visualization’ so many different
things are meant by different people who engage with [it] in
different ways… this mostly unacknowledged heterogeneity in how
people even conceive data viz… makes me wonder to what extent
it is a field and to what extent it is a skill or a practice”
Stephanie Tuerk, Senior Data Visualisation Engineer
#1 VOCABULARY, IDENTITY AND MEMBERSHIP

62. My 2013 census
(n = ~1500)
#2 DIVERSITY OF REPRESENTATION, ROLES & LEADERSHIP
2019 DVS survey
(n = ~1350)
My 2017-19 public
training delegates
(n = ~350)
+ Under-representation of people of colour, non-English speaking & developing countries
Female representation

63. https://medium.com/multiple-views-visualization-research-explained
#3 RESEARCH AND EDUCATION

64. https://indvil.org/
#3 RESEARCH AND EDUCATION
NEW BOOK! “Data
Visualization in
Society. Investigating
the Social Power of
Graphs, Charts and
Maps”

65. #3 RESEARCH AND EDUCATION
Junior/school education?
Higher education?
Further education?
Commercial teaching?
Mature learners?
Distance learning?

66. #4 WHERE DOES THE FIELD EXIST (AND NOT?)

67. #4 WHERE DOES THE FIELD EXIST (AND NOT?)

68. #5 THE TOPICS WE ARE VISUALISING

69. https://www.theguardian.com/politics/ng-interactive/2019/dec/13/boris-johnson-achieves-landslide-victory-visual-guide
#5 THE TOPICS WE ARE VISUALISING

70. https://edition.cnn.com/election/2018/forecast/senate
#5 THE TOPICS WE ARE VISUALISING

71. https://aftertheflood.com/journal/state-of-the-art-of-sports-data-visualization-format-recommendations/
#5 THE TOPICS WE ARE VISUALISING

72. https://www.susielu.com/data-viz/reviziting-the-receipt
#5 THE TOPICS WE ARE VISUALISING

73. “It is worth noting that the strong growth and popularity in the
data visualization field has occurred over the past, say, 10 years,
which effectively coincides with coming out of the Great Recession;
in other words, the modern dataviz field hasn't experienced an
economic slowdown”
Jon Schwabish, Urban Institute
#6 DURABILITY & RESILIENCE

74. COMMUNITY
The fabric of the field
Vocabulary & identity
Diversity of representation
Research & education
Discourse & platform
Topics being visualised
Durability & resilience
CREATING
How we make them
Data ethics & humanism
Immersive virtual platforms
Non-traditional materials
Expressive, scalable GUIs
Enterprise tools
Preservation & archiving
CREATIONS
What we are making
End of graphical austerity?
Embracing imprecision
Growing qualitative enquiry
Emulating vs. plagiarising
Environmental visualisation
Something to say? Say it.
CONSUMING
How they’re experienced
Sonification & audio
Relatable
Participatory
Exploratory vs. explanatory
Literacy & accessibility
Uncertainty & trust
“THE STATE OF THE ART 2019+” presented by Andy Kirk

75. A SCREEN OF THANKS TO…
GURMAN BHATIA
NADIEH BREMER
MICHAEL BRENNER
ALBERTO CAIRO
MONA CHALABI
JEN CHRISTIANSEN
JÉRÔME CUKIER
STEPHANIE EVERGREEN
IRENE DE LA TORRE
JASON FORREST
FEDERICA FRAGAPANE
FI GORDON
KAT GREENBROOK
NIGEL HOLMES
JESSICA HULLMAN
NEIL KAYE
SONJA KUIJPERS
MICHAEL LAMBERT
HEM PATEL
LISA CHARLOTTE ROST
JON SCHWABISH
ALAN SMITH
STEPHANIE TUERK
MIKE WILLETT
SHIRLEY WU