Truly with a Flourish

The aptly named new visualisation platform flourish.studio went live a few weeks back and offers users the opportunity to explore and present their data in a variety of engaging ways.

Like others, such as Tableau, datawrapper, or RAW , flourish.studio the ability to take raw data in a variety of formats (csv, tsv, xls, etc) and produce professional quality data visualisations that can be manipulated and customised extensively and shared as static images or as interactive embeds depending on your own dissemination needs.

Tableau is oft criticised for their steep learning curve. The output from this platform are often impressive, engaging and uniquely constructed to suit the needs of the specific data being, but require users to learn to process data the ‘Tableau way’ and to conform specific practice to a commercially grounded intent. Tableau works on a metaphor of creating a dashboard combining interactive and linked visualisations to relate findings and allow for reader exploration.

flourish.studio adopts a different metaphor and construct providing for straightforward creation of a vast number of visualisations, conveniently grouped by intent and leading the user through an intuitive wizard. In contrast to Tableau, flourish.studio encourages combining the individual visualisations into a compelling narrative format – simply called stories. These stories combine the visualisations with textual captions and in assembly feel somewhat like a Powerpoint presentation. Moving beyond the static however, these stories can combine interactive outputs and in the absolute allow for self-playing full-screen interactive experiences.

The vast number of visualisation options may seem rather daunting at the outset. However, the creative folks at Kiln.digital provide helpful guidance on when and how to use a particular type of chart or representation as well as instructions on the various options possible within each. Additionally, and I think this is most helpful, they prepopulate the data with an example so you can tinker with the results right away and appreciate how the data should be structured to get the result you want.

Datawrappper offers a simpler, more straightforward interface and often equally impressive output with less options, but offers far fewer types of output and fewer options. Having options and ability to create bespoke visualisations comes with the cost of having to have a deeper sense of what you are attempting to accomplish and the finer intracacies of the how the various components interact to convey the data’s message.

This Google-Backed Data Viz Platform Was Designed For Non-Coders

Flourish, a great new tool for data visualization