Visual.ly data visualization

Posted July 15th, 2011 by Caleb Macdougall No Comments »

We are witnessing an explosion of data like the world has never seen how to make sense of it all?

Visual.ly is a new data visualization tool that allows you to:

Explore: You can see the best infographics on the web all in one place
Share: Here you can upload your own infographics to get exposure and feedback
Create: This part is still a work in progress, but youll be able to upload your own data and create visualizations.

Some example graphics

Heres an extract from an infographic on visuall.ly, Glass half empty coming water wars, showing how there will be enormous pressure on water resources in Asia this century (since it represents 60% of the worlds population but has only 36% of the worlds water). The rest of the graphic suggests this may lead to water wars.

Other topics that caught my eye were: Mac person vs PC person (where we learn that Mac people are 50% more likely than PC people to say they frequently throw parties) and The size of the mobile market (which claims Taiwan has the highest number of mobile phones per 100 people (at 106.45), and the US has 45.51, which is below the world average of 59.3. (Singapore is not included I suspect it will be right near the top.)

Visual.lys intro video

Heres Visual.lys own rah-rah:

Reality check

There were some clear errors in the graphics I looked at (like stating 4 billion is half the worlds population it isnt) and typo errors (like Goggle).
More importantly, very few of the infographics have a link to the data source. How do we know the data is accurate or reliable? How can we learn more?
I noticed a few hiccups on the site (like broken images and the odd broken link).

Overall

Anything that takes dry, raw data and helps people to understand it is a Good Thing.

Visual.ly will crash and burn if users doubt the accuracy of what they see. They probably should instigate a review process, or at least insist that data sources are provided.

However, its certainly worth watching this tool as it develops

JY Teachers