Information Aesthetics: Info Viz tools with prepackaged data

Many Eyes lets users practice with shared datasets to create their own visualizations, to comment on others’ data sets, or to share their own data to create visualizations. To use many eyes, data needs to have a specific format, explained here: http://www-958.ibm.com/software/data/cognos/manyeyes/page/Data_Format.html, and becomes available to the public once it is shared.

Google Data Explorer draws from public national-level data sets and allows users to create visual representations that compare and contrast the data.

The Hohli Online Charts Builder lets users create bar graphs, Venn diagrams, and scatter plots. After the user chooses the type of graph he or she wants and enters the data, Hohli builds a graphical representation of the data. Hohli updates the chart automatically as the user adds more data. This is a great tool for simple data sets.

Better World Flux allows users to create basic data visualizations based on the UN Economic Development Indicators. Users select a country of interest, then an indicator, and can use the tool to compare that country to others. This is a great tool for comparisons across countries of data like the prevalence of HIV infection, the percentage of the population that is literate, or the average life expectancy of the population.