Tuesday Tech Tools: 56 Data Visualization Tools

Below are the nine most recommended.

Carto*
Perhaps the best interactive mapmaker but a high learning curve though more of a time investment than a technical-background requirement. No coding needed to look impressive. Used for location intelligence and and journalism alike. Free with paid plans. Video examples here.

Canva*
Graphic design tools. Create social media graphics, headers, slides, flyers, photo collages, posters, infographics, even mind maps for concepts using drag-and-drop. 60k templates. Clip-art library available or upload your own images. Share to social media from the app or download a jpg, PDF, etc. for posting. Free. $12 a month for more options.

Data Wrapper*
Tool for journalists looking to create fast, easily-to-understand visualizations but useful for anyone. Easy to embed. Free version allows creation of 10k charts.

Easely.ly*
Create infographics. Video sample here.

Florish*
A data visualization tool that makes it easy to create both standard charts and a mobile-friendly animated charts. Some customization available. Examples.

Infogram*
Infographic tool especially useful when working with complex data. No coding skills needed. Works with Google Sheets or Dropbox. Create interactive illustrations. 35 types of charts and 200 types of maps. Includes a built-in spreadsheet tool for data editing. Basic version is free but requires the Infogram logo. Upgrades run from $19 to $67 a month.

Meograph*
3D animation of people from 2D video of people. Video explanation.

PiktoChart*
Flat but beautiful interactive graphics. Easy-to-use. Video explanation.

Thinglink*
Create hot-spot graphics. Make images interactive by adding music, a voice over, and text.  Free . Sample.

You’ll find all 56 here.

Tuesday Tech Tools: 12 Timeline Makers

Aeon Timeline
A desktop timeline creation tool especially for creative writers. $50 per license.

BEEDOCS Timesline 3D
Build family trees, and other timelines. iOS only. Free with certain in-app purchases.

Dipity
Embeddable timeline generator w/photos and text. Sample.

Office Timeline
A free PowerPoint add-on that helps you create charts and timelines.

Preceden (formally Time Glider)
Create web-based timelines using images & videos. Easy-to-use.

Sutori
A tool for teachers and students to craft historical timelines combining graphics, video, audio, text, quizzes, and more. Drag and drop little boxes of content. Built for collaborative efforts. Basic accounts are free or paid account with more features $49 a year.

Tiki-Toki
Web-based data-focused timeline maker. Easy-to-use. Free to students while paid accounts run from $5-24 a month with more options.

Timeline Maker
Lots of options but a bit of a learning curve. Not cheap: Starts at $49 for a single-user edu license.

TimelineJS
Knight Lab’s free tools to build visually-rich interactive timelines. It can pull in media from different sources such as Twitter, Flickr, Google Maps, YouTube, Vimeo, SoundCloud, etc. The process for making one involves filling out a supplied spreadsheet template.

TimeMapper
Timelines and maps. Sample video here.

TimeToast
Nice visualization for historical timelines but no customization. Good for teachers and students. Free version or more templates starting at $5.99 a month.

Xtimeline
Creates timelines.

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Tuesday Tech Tools: 58 Data Visualization and Infographic Options

Looking for some ways to tell your story through data? Here are 58 data visualization (or infographic) tools.

D3.js
A Javascript library to create data visualizations. Requires some developer skills to utilize since it requires coding. Very versatile. Examples. Free.

Adoptive Insights
Designed for business. Powerful but has a high learning curve. Cost on a case by case basis. Free trial available.

Animaker
Tool for making infographic videos with animated characters. Limited free version or accounts starting at $144 a year.

Bubbl
Create flow-charts for brainstorming and visualization. Limited options. Video explanation here.

Carto*
Perhaps the best interactive mapmaker but a high learning curve though more of a time investment than a technical-background requirement. No coding needed to look impressive. Used for location intelligence and and journalism alike. Free with paid plans. Video examples here.

Canva*
Create social media graphics, headers, slides, flyers, photo collages, posters, and infographics using drag-and-drop. 60k templates to pick from. Clip-art library available or upload your own images. Share to social media from the app or download a jpg, PDF, etc. for posting. Free or $12 a month for more options.

Chart Maker
Quickly make charts, graphs, etc.

Chartist.js
Simple responsive charts. Will change the way the data is displayed based on the size screen it's being viewed on.

Common Knowledge
A Google tool that quickly makes interactive charts from data which are embeddable. Free.

Comparea
See a visual comparison of two states, cities, countries or continents. Move them around.  It will also tell how many times bigger a geographic area is to another.

Daily Infographic
A new data visualization sample each day. Great way to get ideas.

Data Journalism
Examples, steps and video of how to create data visualizations.

Data Remixed
Blog about data visualizations by Ben Jones, an engineer in LA.

Data to Viz
A site that helps you find the right chart for your data.

Data Visual
Charts and graphs.  Templates or start from scratch.  A short video introduction here.

Data Wrangler
A tool created by Stanford University's Visualization Group for cleaning and rearranging data for other tools to use (such as a spreadsheet).  Does not actually visualizes your data, but preps it for use. This includes extracting, filling, dropping, merging and wrapping data points among other things. There's a learning curve, but it's free.

Data Wrapper*
Tool for journalists looking to create fast, easily-to-understand visualizations but useful for anyone. Easy to embed. Free version allows creation of 10k charts.

Domo
Business tool for creating visualizations. Fully mobile. Good collaboration capabilities. High learning curve. Not for beginners. Starting at $83 a month. Free trial available.

Dundas
Interactive visualizations. Lots of options. No 3-D charts or predictive analysis. Free trial but cost is on a case by case basis.

Easely.ly*
Create infographics. Video sample here.

Everviz (formerly Highcharts Cloud)
One of the easiest to use data visualizations tools. Not much customization. Free.

Florish*
A data visualization tool that makes it easy to create both standard charts and a mobile-friendly animated charts. Some customization available. Examples.

Flowing Data
Blog about how statisticians, designers, data scientists, and others use analysis, visualization, and exploration to understand data and ourselves.

FusionCharts
Chart making Javascript library that requires developer skills. Lots of customization. Starts at $199 a year.

Gephi
Social networking analysis tool to create interactive visualization. Impressive looking but has a steep learning curve. For anything complex you might need some specialist help. Free.

Google Public Data Explorer
Makes large datasets easy to explore, visualize and communicate. As the charts and maps animate over time, the changes in the world become easier to understand.

Graphiq
Data visualization tools. Formally FindTheBest. Not only are there design tools, there are many data sets available to work with.

High Charts
interactive JavaScript charts. Free.

iCharts
Data Visualization aimed at businesses--especially those looking to brand themselves. There's a free option (which allows for data interactivity, public sharing, and unlimited standard data sets) and a business plan that starts at $25 (offering features like private charts, custom templates, upload images and logos, download high-res images, large data sets, chartbooks, etc.

Infogram*
Infographic tool especially useful when working with complex data. No coding skills needed. Works with Google Sheets or Dropbox. Create interactive illustrations. 35 types of charts and 200 types of maps. Includes a built-in spreadsheet tool for data editing. Basic version is free but requires the Infogram logo. Upgrades run from $19 to $67 a month.

Meograph*
3D animation of people from 2D video of people. Video explanation.

NumberPicture
Create simple charts from your data using templates. Introductory video here.

PiktoChart*
Flat but beautiful interactive graphics. Easy-to-use. Video explanation.

Plotly
A good general-use data visualization tool offering many customizations and interactivity. Charts can be exported as images or embedded. A bit of a learning curve. Free with some paid plans.

Powtoon
Animated infographics web tool for creating videos. User-friendly basic cartoon software with plenty of templates and social integrations. The free version has company branding on it while the expensive pro plans start at $19 a month.

Projector
A Canva alternative design resource for non-designers. Video explanation here.

QGIS
Powerful mapmaking software with a high learning curve. The ‘GIS’ stands for geographical information system. Free.

R
This statistical computing language is geared toward data work and thus is the choice of many data scientists for data visualizations. High learning curve so you’ll need to work with a developer. Lots of tutorials and plugins. Very versatile. Free.

Raw Graphs
Built on D3.js but doesn’t require knowing code. Most of the charts are for obscure purposes. You’ll need a developer. An option when you want a unique visualizations for a big project and can spend a decent amount of time on it.

SavvyRoo
Place to create and share visual data. Watch a video explanation here.

Sisense’s  
Graphically represent your large data sets clearly and efficiently. Nice interface, limited type of visualizations. Free trial. Cost based on case by case basis.

Strip Creator
Create your own comic strip.

Story Maps 
A cutsom mapping visualization tool based on ArcGIS with more mapping options than StroyMap JS in the paid version. With simple to use templates, you can  “walk” your viewers through a map-based story.  Example.

StoryMap JS 
A simple mapping visualization tool produced by the Knight Lab at Northwestern for creating interactive maps and timelines. Based on Google's map software from OpenStreetMap. Does not require technical experience. Create slides and connect them on a map that can be embedded or upload your own basemap. Example. 

Tableau Public
Data visualization tools that are interactive. Maps, graphics, etc. Free. Samples.

Tableau Software
Easy to use, great capabilities. Popular but expensive. $70 each month.

Thinglink*
Create hot-spot graphics. Make images interactive by adding music, a voice over, and text.  Free . Sample.

TimeMapper
Timeslines and maps. Sample video here.

Vidi
Drupal-based embeddable modules.

Visage
Create infographics and interactive charts for websites and social media graphics. The free account allows for three images a month.

Visme
Create graphics just for a particular platform for social-specific content. Free.

Visual Editors
A visual editor promotes visual journalism literacy in graphics, photo, video and design.

Visual.ly
Create infographics and data visualizations.

Visualize Free
Upload a data set from a spreadsheet (or cut and paste) for charts, maps, diagrams, etc with a drag and drop designer. Registration needed for an account, but it is free). Lots of public-available data to work with (like data.gov). Uploads are private, so that other users cannot gain access to your data.

Vizualize.me
Create your infographic resume for free. Video introduction here.

Wolfram Alpha
Computational knowledge engine. Enter a search string and have immediate display of various pieces of information regarding that string. The Pro subscription allows users to input their own data and quickly converted into dynamic and interactive charts. The price tag is $4.99 a month and limited to twenty uploads each month.on. 

WTFViz
Visualizations that make no sense.

Zoho Reports
Analytics tool to design intuitive dashboards and data visualizations. Easy to learn. Beautiful graphics but limited customization. from $22 to $444 a month. Free trial.

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