Announcing: Data Visualization Best Practices on Mobile Devices – Our New Knight Foundation Prototype Grant

Translating data visualization to smaller resolutions is a challenge that can’t be solved with responsive design techniques alone. New interaction models and different visualization techniques are required to accomodate smaller interfaces. We’ve spent a lot of time thinking about this problem as part of our consulting work and are very excited to be one of the 24 recipients of the Knight Foundation Prototype Grant to explore this very concern.

In the coming weeks, we will begin surveying existing data visualization designs on smaller screens. We will also provide a place for conversation about their efficacy. This survey, combined with available academic publications and industry-defined patterns, will culminate in a web-based guide summarizing our findings – much like Greg Smith‘s Learn Layout.

Bocoup’s Data Visualization initiative has seen tremendous growth in the past year. Since we embarked on this journey, we’ve had the privilege to work with a variety of clients to build innovative visualization-based systems, contribute to the open source community through the Miso Project, and run OpenVis Conf, our conference dedicated to the practice of building data visualizaiton on the web, recurring this year on April 24-25th.

To kick off 2014, we are emphasizing our dedication to education within the initiative as well. We’ve added a d3.js class to our curriculum, the first of which will run on April 10th. And now, thanks to our second Knight Foundation Prototype Grant, we’ll also be producing a useful guide for the community of data visualization makers.

In the spirit of the Open Web, we are looking forward to carrying out this work with the community’s voice heard loud and clear. Stay tuned for updates on how you can contribute!