IBM's Data-Visualization Champion

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Why Visualization Matters

Wattenberg is not the only software designer with this thought—the topic is hot, and competition to create and distribute data-visualization applications is heating up. Google (GOOG) recently acquired the software Trendalyzer, made by Swedish nonprofit Gapminder, which makes animated graphs (see BusinessWeek.com 2/22/06, "Graphing the Development Gap"). The founders of the startup company Swivel have also created a free tool that allows the public to create basic graphs from any data and post them online.

Of course, data is only truly valuable when accurate. "Yes, we're concerned about people using inaccurate data," Wattenberg says. "But what's interesting is that we've seen some data problems uncovered, even in visualizations [that users say are] made with information from reputable sources such as the U.S. government. In many cases, we’ve seen people fill in missing data." Making data available online in the form of easy-to-digest graphics, Wattenberg points out, can actually help pinpoint and correct inaccuracies more efficiently.

Wattenberg's approach is set apart, moreover, by his focus on aesthetics and a spectrum of visual styles that reach beyond the traditional bar, line, and pie charts that Swivel or Excel offer. Wattenberg and Viégas have designed the graphics templates to be clean, imaginative, and unusual, to better engage both the graph makers and graph analyzers.

Wattenberg completed his first high-profile data-visualization project, Map of the Market, in 1998, when the first dot-com boom was still going strong. At the time, Wattenberg was the director of research and development at Smartmoney.com, the Web site of personal finance magazine SmartMoney, published by Dow Jones (DJ) and Hearst. A newly minted PhD, he was hired to explore new ways to present financial data online.

Soon after landing this job, Wattenberg wanted to better understand how the stock market worked, with the idea that this tool might be deployed on the Smartmoney.com site. So he created a software application that could translate live stock-market data from Nasdaq and Dow Jones into a tree map so he could see trends, such as the industries that included companies with the most popular stocks. He then developed that visualization into a public, online application that presents data on more than 600 publicly traded corporations. "I needed to make the prototype of Map of the Market to understand the market," he admits. "That project was a touchstone for me. It was incredibly helpful. Suddenly, I could see relationships that only traders saw. Aha! It convinced me of the value of visualization."

Wattenberg continued to experiment with creating data tools, often in his spare time. Many of these side projects were made as personal artworks, allowing him the freedom to explore the possibilities of the field without being restricted by any sort of sales pressure or corporate agenda. But many of his art projects have potential business applications. A notable one is The Shape of Song, which maps rhythmic patterns of music into graceful onscreen arcs and, in essence, illustrates how to write a popular song that will sell millions of copies. Wattenberg says several musicians have contacted him about using the software to visualize their compositions, although to date he's unaware of any producers who have used the diagrams to formulate hit tunes.

NASA Commission

In 2002, NASA commissioned Wattenberg to create an online interface for its database of 800 works of space-themed artworks by the likes of Andy Warhol and Annie Leibovitz. Rather than simply design a generic navigation system, Wattenberg devised a galaxy-themed cluster of onscreen stars, each one corresponding to an individual art work. Visitors to the NASA site can rearrange the information to create their own groupings of artworks, arranging them by common elements such as "concepts of the future" or "space walks."