Democratizing data visualization
In 2007, members of the Haystack Group in MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory released a set of Web development tools called “Exhibit.” Exhibit lets novices quickly put together interactive data visualizations, such as maps with sortable data embedded in them; sortable tables that automatically pull in updated data from other sites; and sortable displays of linked thumbnail images.In April, at the Association for Computing Machinery’s Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, Haystack members will present an in-depth study of the ways in which Exhibit has been used — with ramifications for the design of data-visualization tools; data-management software, such as spreadsheets; and Web-authoring software, such as content management systems.The study also indicates ways in which websites could better gauge the effectiveness of the visualizations they publish. “Imagine if The New York Times was able to track how well you understood a visualization, or how you used it,...