Thoughts from the First Ever OpenVis Conf, 2013

Bocoup recently ran our first-ever OpenVis Conf May 16-17, 2013 in Boston. We were thrilled to bring together 216 developers, designers, and data researchers from around the globe to discuss moving data visualization forward on the Open Web.

While data visualization and storytelling are well-established fields, combining these arts and bringing them to the web is relatively new. The kind of highly-interactive storytelling that is growing out of the data vis community is very of the web, and we’re excited to support this community. As the only Open Web Data Visualization conference, OpenVis sought to bring together conversations among data visualization practitioners on the tools, processes and resources that grow the community.

A clear takeaway from OpenVis Conf is that data visualization on the web is rapidly expanding. Libraries like D3.js, which was mentioned frequently, are changing the way we build data visualizations. As the vocabulary of data visualization on the web expands, we’ll tackle challenges in code design and architecture that allow us to better reuse and maintain assets. Further, as we build the technical foundation necessary for creating data visualizations on the web, we must expand these tools to support a variety of devices and audiences.

Happily, there is a growing collection of open source tools to help us create data visualizations for the web. Here are just a few resources mentioned by our speakers at OpenVis Conf:

• Parallel Coordinates
• d3 Force Layout
• StatsD
• sklearn
• sando
• Miso Dataset
• learnLayout.com
• livecoding.io
• TileMill

We’re also very excited to share the OpenVis Conf talk videos with those who missed this year’s conference, or those who just want to re-watch their favorite presentation. We hope you’ll plan to join us next year for OpenVis Conf 2014!