With changing information needs of the user and the advancements in technology, data visualizations today have become more evolved, more effective and more insightful. 17 experts share their views on where the industry is headed in 2014.

1. Data Visualization Predictions for 2014
17 Experts Share their Views
By: Shilpi Choudhury

2. “
There is a magic in graphs. The profile of a curve
reveals in a flash a whole situation—the life history of
an epidemic, a panic, or an era of prosperity. The
curve informs the mind, awakens the imagination,
convinces.
”
—Henry D. Hubbard, 1939
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3. In an age where data is considered the fuel for growth, here’s
how industry leaders see the evolution of data visualization in
the coming months…
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4. Combining human intelligence with existing
sources of data
“
I see a trend towards data visualizations getting simpler but more effective
and pervasive on mobile, for consumption by on-the-go workforce. I also
see a new paradigm of data visualization components to aid business users
find co-relations and patterns in datasets, through visual exploration. A
growing trend to combine human intelligence with existing sources of data
(transaction, operational etc.) to form a more accurate representation and
to tell the complete story is on the cards too.
Pallav Nadhani
CEO & Co-Founder, FusionCharts
”
4

5. “
Raw numbers to meaningful stories
“
I believe that data visualization is one of the most important
trends in the last few years and it will be increasingly more
important. As we collect more and more information, we will
have to find effective ways to visualize data in a way that
turns raw numbers into meaningful stories.
Daniel Waisberg
”
Analytics Advocate, Google
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6. Possibility of authoring
“
Solutions will evolve to put more focus, more weight on the key
figure and the related key message (eg: is it positive, negative),
charts (bar, line, etc.) become an instrument giving more details on
the first Key Figure. Typical example is tiles—each tile contains only
one element (number, percentage, etc) and further details are
accessible by drilling.
The other trend—linked to the first one—is authoring; Give the
possibility to the end user to make his own view based on moving
upfront the most relevant tiles, without technical awareness.
David Poisson
BI Director, Global IT, SAP
”
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7. Delivery at the last millisecond
“
The industry is moving from cumbersome and time-consuming processes that require
crunching large quantities of data over months to identify high-value audiences to a space
that brings together data and content. A space where marketers can gather actionable
insights in a fractional space of time: between the action—every swipe, tag, drag and
click—and the decision—to buy, to subscribe, to join, or to leave the page. Marketers will
embrace rocket science to understand their customer. A system that will empower them to
track a customer’s behavior, preempt his need and give him something relevant. This
involves assimilating all the information, filtering it as per the interests of the visitor,
understanding his requirement and delivering that onto an omni channel environment
including mobile devices, tablets, kiosks and smart TV in a fraction of a second which we at
Adobe call the last millisecond.
Umang Bedi
”
Managing Director, South Asia Region, Adobe Systems
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8. One size fits all
“
Data visualization is just a means to disperse the information we gather
using data. In that sense, I see more and more data consumers asking for
customized visual representation. Infographics is increasingly becoming
popular because people are finding out easier and different ways to
visually represent the data. No data is created equal and we shouldn't fit
it into standard lines and graphs.
Amit Sawhney
Sr. Product Manager, SlideShare
”
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9. Smarter visualizations & generated insights
“
I see a move towards smarter visualizations―displays showing
relative changes over time that can point out the interesting
signals that you should be paying attention to. I also see
notifications and generated insights playing a larger role. As
the amount of data we have increases, it becomes difficult to
stay on top of it all. The display needs to ease some of this
analytical burden from the user by discovering and surfacing
anomalies without the user having to dig for them.
Robby Macdonell
Head of Product Development, RescueTime
”
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10. Actionable insights
“
The industry is growing rapidly and I expect it to continue
in the coming years, especially after the push given by Big
Data. The Internet has plenty of data that need to be
analyzed and presented properly for them to be
actionable.
”
Francisco Sáez
CEO, FacileThings

11. Relate to the real world
“
With the constant growth of technology, we’ve seen an
explosion in so-called big data. Everything around us is
constantly producing data, and we need a way to make
sense and relate the numbers to the real world. Data
visualization is going to be the key to this, helping us
make sense of an increasingly connected world.
David Mytton
Founder & CEO, Server Density
”
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12. Winner takes it all
“”
There is going to be an explosion of data visualization methods
and products, and a few clear winners who will ultimately
subsume them.
Kristian Russell
Creative Director, Simplee

13. Customizable and responsive
“”
In 2014, I see a trend towards more customizable and
responsive layouts.
Kaspars Upmanis
Founder, CakeHR
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14. Interactive, context aware & dynamic
“
I think the data visualizations in 2014 will become even more
interactive than before, as the tools that lay the groundwork
for it have greatly improved. The visualizations will also
become a lot more context aware and dynamic.
Matic Bitenc
”
CEO, Toshl Finance
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15. Beyond single systems
“
Data visualization should evolve beyond single systems. There's so
much of data that hides beneath the interaction points of different
multiple systems in an organization. For example, CRM and Support
Ticketing Tool. As an organization, we're not just interested in how
these teams and systems are working, but also want to know
metrics such as how different is support-seeking behavior for our
larger clients v/s smaller. I'm hoping future technologies connect
with such systems more or less automatically and derive useful
metrics and visualization automatically.
Paras Chopra
Founder & CEO, Wingify
”
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16. More focus on exploration than monitoring
“
Some of the current trends like collaborative/social sharing and mashing up
programming languages and libraries (Python, R, JavaScript), especially
JavaScript libraries for iPython Notebooks will continue. But I see more and
more startups working on visual analytics, focusing more on exploration
than presentation and monitoring (drill-down, filtering, cross-linking,
querying). We will also see more domain specific apps, visualization for
mobile and wearable platforms and leveraging WebGL and shaders.
”
I personally would be glad to see the end of the confusion between
infographics (of the dumb marketing type) and information visualization.
Christophe Viau
Data Visualization Engineer, Plotly
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17. More with less
“
I think that companies are starting to embrace Data Visualization as
a new phase of data analysis. In the past it was fine to just provide
someone with a spreadsheet full of numbers. Not in today's
environment of having to do more with less resources. The days of
having a staff review the data and make recommendations are
behind us. Today you need to be able to view the data and in just a
few minutes determine what action you need to take. That is the
power of Data Visualization. That is why leading companies are
embracing Data Visualization.
Brad Rose
”
Project Manager Data Visualization, Nestle USA
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18. Feel the impact
“
I believe we will continue to see the expansion of data visualization
works that are driven by a particular narrative. While this storytelling
with data is exemplified by news organizations like the New York
Times, the idea will be incorporated further into other visualization
channels. Emotion will also play a larger role in choices of topics and
design. Visualizations will strive to get people to really feel the impact
and weight of the data behind the graphics.
Jim Vallandingham
Data Visualization Engineer, Nordstrom
”
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19. From the computer to the mind
“
General culture shifts brought on by an overabundance of data,
multimedia content, and jam packed social media streams has made
visual communication more important than ever. Effectively reaching an
audience now requires quality visual content. Data visualization is a
great piece of this puzzle, working as a way to visually deliver insight. In
2014, it will be important for the visualization industry to improve visual
communication so that all the insights gathered from our wealth of data
can make out of our computers and into our minds.
Drew Skau
Visualization Architect, Visual.ly
”
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20. Actionable hyper-personal data
“
As for the immediate future of data visualization, I think that users have
become accustomed to—and will demand more—personal data that is
actionable and easy to understand. With wearable tech allowing users
access to hyper-personal data pertaining to their coming and going and
general health, this type of information will become more of a novelty.
Users will want to see creative amalgamations of data reflecting their
health and daily routines that give them a unique sense of self and
accomplishment...naturally they will want to share this information with
others in dynamic ways.
Josh Tyson
”
Managing Editor, UX Magazine
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21. Where do you see the
data visualization
industry headed in the
coming months?
Add your comments below.
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22. Need more such insights on data visualization?
Check out the FusionCharts blog
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