Data visualisation

Data visualisation, like digital storytelling, is not a single tool, but rather a technique which can draw on a whole variety of different web 2.0 tools (including mobile apps) and, increasingly, web 3.0 tools in the form of generative AI chatbots and plug-ins that can create data visualisations in a more automated way.

Data visualisation involves displaying data sets in visual formats, which are sometimes static (such as images, charts or infographics, which typically combine text and images) and sometimes dynamic (such as videos or interactive animations). See the example above of the video The Internet 1997-2021 from The Opte Project.

The aim is to reveal and/or highlight patterns by presenting the data in a particular way. We’re seeing growing use of infographics, especially in the media, to communicate key information quickly in an easily comprehensible format. Therefore, it is important for students to learn both how to read data visualisations (bringing digital literacies like multimodal literacy, information literacy and critical literacy to bear in their analysis) and how to create and disseminate them (though the use of multimedia and networking tools). While creating data visualisations traditionally required sophisticated technical skills, tools are now available which make it possible for non-specialists to create them.

Useful resources include:

• • Services which provide infographics on a wide range of topics: some of these might serve as good stimulus materials for lessons, such as Mashable’s Infographics Pinterest board, Visually’s Education Infographics, and Elearning Infographics (note that the last of these is of more direct relevance to educators and teacher trainers).
  • Services which provide large data sets, along with templates that can be used to create specific visualisations of the data: these include Google Books’ Ngram Viewer, Google’s Public Data Explorer (and Dataset Search), and the Google Earth Engine.
  • Services which provide templates into which you can insert your own selected data: these include Easelly, Flourish, Infogram, Piktochart, Venngage and Visme, as well as the Education Infographic Templates on the design platform Canva. Dynamic data visualisations can be created without any need for coding using some of the above services, such as Infogram or Flourish. Other options include the generic multimedia creation and sharing services listed on the social sharing page of this website. For reviews of various infographic creation platforms, see The Edublogger’s Educators’ Guide to Infographics and MakeUseOf’s 5 Best Free Tools to Make Infographics Online.
  • Services which support more automated creation of data visualisations, such as generative AI chatbots and their plug-ins. As these tools rapidly become more sophisticated, the options for creating data visualisations will increase. It is a good idea for students to gain some hands-on, manual experience of creating data visualisations beforehand, so that they have a greater understanding of how these function, develop their data literacy, and can bring a critical eye to bear on any automatically created visualisations.

For ideas on the kinds of data visualisations it is possible to create, take a look at Ralph Lengler and Martin Eppler’s infographic A Periodic Table of Visualization Methods. For more guidance, see Visually’s infographic entitled The Anatomy of a Great Infographic. For more on educational uses, see Kathy Schrock’s Infographics as a Creative Assessment.

Examples of very sophisticated data visualisations include the Opte Project video The Internet 1997-2021 (also available on YouTube), as seen at the top of this page, and the dynamic Coupofy infographic showing statistics from Social Media in Real Time, as seen directly above. Other interesting examples worth checking out include:

• • Pulse of the Nation: U.S. Mood Throughout the Day inferred from Twitter (Amislove, 2010) [Video]
  • A Time-Lapse of Every Nuclear Explosion since 1945 (Isao Hashimoto, 2010) [Video]
  • London 24: Layers of London Air Traffic (NATS, 2015) [Video]
  • The Deep Sea (Neil Agarwal, 2019) [Interactive visualisation]
  • Atlas of the Invisible: Using Data to Map the Climate Crisis (The Guardian, 2021) [Static visualisations]
  • Nominal GDP Cartogram (BlueBerry, 2021) [Static visualisation]
  • Climate Shift Index (Climate Central, 2023) [Interactive visualisation]
  • What Happens in an Internet Minute 2024 (BondHighPlus, 2024) [Static visualisation]
  • We Feel (CSIRO with The Black Dog Institute, Amazon & GNIP, n. d.) [Interactive visualisation]

Last update: June 2024.