Background

Abstract

There is a new concept emerging in the field of web development: using data visualizations as communication tools. This concept is something that is already well established in other fields and departments. At the company where you work, your finance department probably uses data visualizations to represent fiscal information both internally and externally; just take a look at the quarterly earnings reports for almost any publicly traded company. They are full of charts to show revenue by quarter, or year over year earnings, or a plethora of other historic financial data. All are designed to show lots and lots of data points, potentially pages and pages of data points, in a single easily digestible graphic.