Effective Data communication using data visualisations

24 August 2017. GODAN/CTA Webinar. Data visualisation has been around at least since the 18th century and recently the increase of a number of easy-to-use tools have made the creation of different types of data visualisations, including infographics, available to a large segment of the population. Visualizations can help reveal important trends in agriculture and nutrition to support many objectives including advocacy and training.

This part 1 of the Data Visualisation series featured Studio Lakmoes, a Dutch company which works to turn complex data into compelling visualisations that tell stories. CTA presented how they are using infographics in their Data4Agriculture unit. The objectives of the webinar were:

• Provide an understanding of infographics as a form of data communication;
• Explain the process of creating a good infographic;
• Demonstrate some visualisation software;
• Share ideas on how infographics are being applied for open data for agriculture and nutrition.

Resources

1. Piktochart Piktochart is a web-based tool that has six decent free themes (and a whole bunch more for the paid version) for creating simple visualizations. You can drag and drop different shapes and images, and there is quite a bit of customization available. You can also add simple line, bar, and pie charts using data from CSV (or manual entry). You can export to PNG and JPG in either print or web quality. Note that with the free version, you get a small Piktochart watermark on the bottom of the PNG / JPG downloads.
2. Visual.ly Visual.ly has some simple free tools worth mentioning, many of which integrate with social networks to analyze Twitter and Facebook data. You can create fun Venn diagrams, Twitter account show-downs, visuals that analyze hash tags, and a few others, but there's almost no customization available. However, they offer a marketplace where you can get connected with visual designers and motion graphics artists who specialize in infographics. The site itself also has a ton of great info graphics to inspire you or your designers. There is some serious data visualization eye candy in there, people.
3. Google charts: Google Charts provides a perfect way to visualize data on your website. From simple line charts to complex hierarchical tree maps, the chart gallery provides a large number of ready-to-use chart types.
4. Easel.ly Create and share visual ideas
5. Infogram: Infographics Create stunning infographics that boost visitor engagement and traffic on your website or blog.
6. See also: 10 Tools for Creating Infographics and Visualizations