Tableau states that they are “on a mission to help people see and understand data.” The company offers a variety of software options from on-site to online. They advertise faster analytics of any data amount, ease of use, smart dashboards, sharing, and automatic updating. A free trial is available, too, all of which places it among the best data visualization software.

Domo claims to save users thousands of hours with automated reports and visualization, easy access to 100’s of data sources, and the ability to access data anywhere and on any device. Doma made the best data visualization list for many reasons including its ability to collect data from a variety of sources in real time.

Zoho offers a variety of services including data visualization. With a drop-and-drag interface, Zoho reports being able to create a wide variety of charts, tables, reports and dashboards. The Zoho site says its creations can be embedded anywhere and shared easily. Those interested can take a tour or sign up for free. Zoho also offers help creating forms, survey collection, ad free email, social media analysis, document management and much more, winning it a spot on the best data visualization list.

GoodData goes beyond business intelligence to deliver insight and advanced analytics for organizations. This cloud analytic platform makes the best data visualization list for offering big data ready ETL/ELT, warehousing for data, innovative analysis and visualization and self-service data detection. Always available, the site offers a free trial at sign-up.

Pentaho describes itself as a “leading data integration and business analytics company” capable of taking on data of any size. They are among the best data visualization software for helping companies understand and use their data including big data and Internet of things. Data visualizations are tailor-made to meet the needs of each business.

Ever wonder at what rate you actually earn your paycheck? Time & Money will break it down for you to the second and to the penny. Flowing currency represents the money made per second. The flow may be paused at any time.

The real time data visualization allows you to set the hourly rate, salary, number of people, institution or select from topics such as the U. S. minimum wage, working population, or government budgets.  Clicking on images of bills or coins provides the viewer with a quick history of the currency. Currency starts at a penny and goes up to a $100,000 bill, which the author admits he did not know existed until this project. This real time data visualization was created by Bradford F. Lyon.

Viewers can see the drastic difference in someone making minimum wage verse someone taking home $100,000 a year. Even watching for one minute communicates the difference through this real time data visualization. A minimum wage employee makes 12¢ in one minute whereas the other makes $1.90. Images of real U.S. currency are used and have been approved by the U.S. Mint and Secret Service.

Although the term data visualization often makes one think of colorful charts from Excel or interactive infographics, simpler forms have been around for centuries. Some of the first data visualizations examples would have been done in clay, rock or even sand, dating back thousand of year, according to DataArt . Maps became the main subject for data visualization for many years, using mediums such as papyrus.

In 7 Great Data Visualization Examples from History , Michael Goldberg explains several pre-technology data visualization examples hold a special place in history because the authors had to hand code and design each one. One of those included Dmitri Mendeleev, who developed the Periodic Table. It was significant in that it showed all the elements could be combined into one table by atomic structure instead of separated by atomic weight or common properties.

In 1869, Charles Minard created a graphic showing Napoleon’s campaign and retreat in Russian. The multivariate data presented includes the size of the army, the army’s location, direction of the army’s movement and temperatures on certain dates. Edward Tufte describes it as being possibly the “best statistical graphic ever drawn.”

Mapping deaths from cholera, John Snow was able to visually display that the Broad Street water pump may have been the source of the outbreak in 1854. Although he was not the first to map the epidemic, he was the first to use the underlying scientific theory for cholera’s transmission in this historical data visualization example.

Florence Nightingale used visual illustrations for data she felt could not be “readily grasped when contained in figures” in her campaign for more sanitary conditions and quality care for soldiers. She was able to communicate the great number of soldiers were dying due to conditions rather than their war wounds through this historic data visualization example.

One of the first examples of stereograms is Luigi Perozzo’s Numero Assoluto dei Nati Vivi, which moved into 3D imagery. Several 3D data visualization systems were discovered during the last 1800s. Perrozzo’s diagram illustrates the population of Sweden from 1750 to 1875 and was published around 1880. Further notability came from it being printed in color which enhanced the depth perception. DataArt explains that the diagram shows year horizontally, number of individuals vertically and age groups by depth.

For many, using their first name is impractical because so many share the same first name. Babyname Wizard provides Name Voyager: Baby Name Wizard Graph of Most Popular Baby Names so you can see just how popular certain names are in this datavisualization. Names can be scrolled through with each represented by a line (boys are blue and girls pink) with their thickness representing their popularity. Readers who cannot find their name by hovering over the graph can search for their name specifically and indicate whether they are looking for boys or girls by that name. The datavisualization covers the 1880s until 2014, by decade. Names are listed in the 100,000s per million births.

Hovering over a name in the datavisualization tells the viewer the name as well as its rank at that point in time. Names like “John” show a decline since the 1880s when it was number 1 to number 2 starting in the 1920s. It stayed in the top 10 until 1990s when it moved to number 15. Clicking on the name in the chart takes the reader to a view of only that name. Clicking on the second chart opens a new tab which provides information about the name such as the origin, other name lists featuring the same name, comments from readers, famous people with that name as well as its use in songs, stories and movies.

Data visualization software enables data to be transformed into a graph or other visual aid. These visualizations can vary from graphs to charts to geographical maps. Many are interactive or present real-time data, according to Software Advice . The data visualized allows readers to analyze information, insight and recognize trends all at one, using everyone’s time more efficiently because less time is used interpreting numbers.

Although data visualization software is easy to find, choosing the right one for your personal or business needs can become more complicated. One thing to consider is if you want software on your system or a web-based program. Web-based systems provide an easy of use at any location with internet access but most require a monthly subscription fee. Further, make sure the vendor offers Mobile Business Intelligence (Mobile BI) if you plan to use it on a mobile device. Mobile BI software can provide a lower cost, less IT needs and are faster to implement.

Other concerns, according to Technology Advice , include making sure the software is compatible with your data source. Make sure the data visualization software can create the type of graphic visualization necessary whether it is a graphic, treemap, infographic or three-dimensional scatter plot. In addition, researching the software user-friendliness is important if non-technical users will be operating the software. It should have a clean, easy to understand interface.

The New York Times created an interactive data visualization, Connecting the Dots Behind the 2016 Presidential Candidates , to help readers understand the people behind the candidates in the 2016 presidential election. The introduction explains that although the candidates change, often the people behind the campaigns do not. Visualizing data in this way, allows the reader to get a comprehensive look at who is where and where they have been in the past. The visualization begins with Hillary Rodham Clinton who by far has the most connections. Her network is broken into Clinton loyalists, Obama operative, pro-Clinton super PAC, and other key strategists.

Viewers can hover over circles to highlight the connections or see who belongs to which group by selecting a box at the top of her visualization.

The caption explains that the size of the circle is proportional to the number of people in each group. Campaigns are darker and administrations along with other organizations are lighter.

The interactive’s way of visualizing data allows the reader to make connections, literally, that they may not have made otherwise. Besides Hillary Clinton, candidates include Jeb Bush, Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, Marco Rubio, and Scott Walker. The New York Times has several other ways of visualizing data regarding the election including information on candidates’ backgrounds, who is running verse who is not, and who has the campaign money.

Combining data visualization and video, Neil Halloran created The Fallen of World War II . The interactive documentary discusses the deaths of WWII and other wars since. The video runs 18 minutes and 16 seconds including credits. Viewers have a choice of the interactively visualizing data which requires a current computer or the video which plays on most devices. Both present the same information. The difference is the interactive has points in which you can pause and examine the data more depth if you choose. The video is laced with photos and icons transforming from one chart into another.

Visualizing data gives the viewer a better understanding of not only the death of soldiers but civilians during WWII and later wars. It explains how many died from which countries in a powerful bar chart that one comment describes as “hit(ing) closer to the heart” than the numbers themselves.

With the highest causality count in history, the video explains that proportionately WWII’s death rate may not be as significant of a number due to the larger population worldwide.

It concludes by going into the wars since WWII, detailing which countries fought, the number of years each conflict lasted, death totals by year and the type of battle: civil, civil with foreign intervention, interstate or colonial.

From music videos to the flight of a single stork to sports analysis, 3D data visualization covers it all. In 2008, English rock band Radiohead released a music video for House of Cards created using a scanning system capturing 3D images through structured light for close ups and 64 laser rotating system with a 360 degree radius, shooting 900 times per minute for wider shots such as landscapes. The result is an all 3D data visualization video.

422 South is a data visualization, computer generated imagery (CGI) and visual effects company in the United Kingdom. In March, they published a CGI 3D data visualization video entitled “ 3D Data Visualization Reel-2015 .” They describe the video as “the world as seen by data” and begin with tracking a day in the life of an urban seagull. The video composition goes on to follow seals dodging ships in the North Sea, lightning strikes vs. lottery winners, rush hour traffic in Los Angeles, international meat trade routes, the world’s busiest two runway airport and many other topics. The 3D data visualizations are powerful.

Lastly, 3D data visualization helps athletes and sports enthusiasts analyze games and improve performance. GameSetMap explains how the data is displayed and used for tennis matches. For example, one data visualization example displays serve patterns during the World Tour Finals in 2014. Further down the site, a 3D heat map shows where the ball was most frequently during a match between two right handed players over 5 sets at the US Open. The data consisted of 10s of thousands of data points which are unmanageable without some sort of analysis.

Many data visualization tools can be found on the web. Some will cost you a pretty penny but many are free. One free data visualization tool is the open-source javascript library Leaflet . Full of mobile friendly interactive maps, Leaflet describes itself as “designed with simplicity, performance and usability in mind.” The web site is complete with tutorials, links to plugins to expand its basic abilities, and download page for various versions.

Google Developers Charts offers a variety of charts in a gallery and has a quick start guide. With 28 types of charts, maps, word trees and timelines, users can find the best way to display their information using this totally free data visualization tool.

Another free, open source data visualization javascript library for interactive map-making is Polymaps . This site offers data visualization techniques including spherical Mercator tile format, multi-zoom datasets over maps and tiled vector data which makes it possible to use on country, state, city, or neighborhood levels.

Small and specifically designed for vector graphics, Raphaël is a javascript library designed to make cross-browser compatibility easy. The site provides animation demos and free icons but is more hands-on that other tools.

Other free data visualization tools and techniques available on the web can be found in The 37 best tools for Data Visualization .

Presenting data in a visual form such as a chart, graph or picture is SAS Institute’s definition of data visualization. The analytics software and service company’s What is data visualization web page explains that human brains process charts and graphs faster than spreadsheets or reports. Yet, many still find charts and graphs boring. Enter interactive data visualization offering more details and changing the ways data is viewed. Users can click on parts of the visual to find more information and remain interested.

Data visualization is important because it often allows people to see things which were not apparent before they viewed the data in a visual presentation. Patterns emerge that are not as visible on a spreadsheet and the data can be consolidated regardless of the amount.

SAS does offer advice for generating the best data visualization possible. One tip is to know your audience and how your audience processes information. Second, understand the data and what you want to communicate. Third, choose the best but simplest form to convey your visual information.

All that is great for a business but what is data visualization for the average Joe? If the data exists, it can be made visual whether for use or entertainment. WebdesignerDepot .com offers 50 Great Examples of Data Visualization , including some of the data visualization tools that create them. For example, Narratives 2.0 creates music visualization.

Tag Galaxy allows the user to search Flickr tags and view all images via a globe graphic. Viewers can see a larger version by clicking on a picture.

Visualizing the Bible provide a visual representation of 63,000 textual cross-references in the Bible. It is more for its attractive appearance and is not interactive.

Finally, Visual Complexity is a collection of visualizations categorized and ready for viewing. For example, one contributor created a summary of his son, daughter, cat and his own movements through their living room over one hour in 2008.