New to journalism and keen on data? Here’s a list of the top 5 free visualisation tools for any budding data journalists looking to create stunning visual data.
What is data visualisation?
Before we dive into the available tools to create a visual presentation of data, here’s a quick explanation into what data visualisation is.
Data visualisation is the representation of data through graphics such as charts, graphs and maps. By doing this, it enables your data to be widely accessible and easily understandable. As they say, a picture tells a thousand words and so it provides an accessible way to understand trends, outliers and patterns in data.
Luckily, most of these tools won’t require you to have any coding experience. However, if you’re looking to learn more about coding sites, be sure to check out how to become a data vis pro to get you started.
Starting from 5 and working our way towards the top spot, here are the top 5 tools we would recommend for any data journalist looking to showcase their findings.
5. Tableau Public
This is a comprehensive, easy to use tool that houses a wide range of different graphs. That means everything from pie charts, maps, bubbles, scatter plots and area charts.
Simple to use but it does require you to install the program to your desktop. Read on if you are looking to use some open-source resources instead.
4. Infogram
Similarly, another powerful resource with over 37 interactive charts to choose from. What’s more is that Infogram has a wide range of free templates to use for social media that are Facebook and Instagram friendly.
While there’s the option to go pro for £19 a month, Infogram also has a basic option that will suffice if you’re just starting out in the world of data journalism. It allows you up to 10 projects, up to 5 pages per product and 13 map types. You can find out more about pricing here.
3. Datamatic
At number 3 is Datamatic, which provides a great, little video on the basic how-tos of creating a stunning data visual. The company’s tools are superb at including interactive elements to highlight the most important parts of your data.
This is a great range of free data visualisations that doesn’t require any prior knowledge of coding. Just upload your data from Excel and Datamatic does the rest.
2. Datawrapper
No coding required, this allows you to simple copy and paste data into a table and Datawrapper does the rest. Customise the colours, add a title and preview your work in desktop, mobile and tablet format before publishing.
What’s even easier is that Datawrapper let’s you make your data visual as soon as you click ‘create’ so there’s no initial sign up required. A fun, interactive tool that let’s you insert a public dataset and create impactful visualisations.
1. Flourish
A fantastic resource, this gets our top spot as it gives you the option to use data visualisations for storytelling. The visuals are highly interactive and blend seamlessly together in a storytelling setting.
Moreover, the functionality is so detailed yet very simple. Flourish provides multiple dropdown menus to segment which part of the chart or graph you want to edit. This ranges from changing the chart style, to the legend, the x- and y-axis labels and the duration of the animation.
Therefore, it’s no doubt that this powerful tool is great for creating professional data visuals perfect for sharing.
Conclusion
Each of these tools are useful and powerful in their own right, it really just depends on what you want to achieve from creating data visuals.
Whether that’s storytelling through multiple visuals or making a piece of data that’s suitable for sharing via social media, all of these tools are sure to kick start your skills in data journalism and data visualisation.