Creating sophisticated data visualizations may not be for everyone, but a startup called Observable is trying to make the process a bit less impenetrable.
Observable provides a free website for creating complex graphs, charts, and other visual representations of data, such as face mask adoption in the United States or an Electoral College decision tree for the U.S. Presidential Election. While it requires some coding knowledge to use, it also lets anyone take an existing visualization and modify it for their own purposes, either by changing the visuals or plugging in their own data. That means people can start learning the ropes just by playing around with what’s already been made, and even the coding part scares you off, you can still visit Observable’s website to absorb its impressive graphics.
Face masks adoption in the U.S. [Animation: Observable]“We wanted to bring together this creative potential with something that’s going to be more accessible, really by helping people learn from each other,” Bostock says.
Tweakable visuals
For an ideal example of how Observable works, just look back to the fall of 2019, when impeachment inquiries against President Trump were getting underway.
At the time, a tweet by Lara Trump had gone viral, showing a mostly red electoral map supporting the President. That’s when Karim Douïeb, a Brussels-based designer, decided to respond with a corrective. He logged into Observable, and within about two hours had created a much more honest map, with red and blue population bubbles hovering over each U.S. county.
That map, which helped illustrate the point that land doesn’t vote, soon went viral. (My colleague Mark Wilson covered Douïeb’s map and the greater the election map debate a couple weeks ago, when it started getting renewed attention during the U.S. Presidential election.)
