Is your data trying to tell you something? Many people — even some Excel power users — don’t realize the full potential of their data. But in those cells are stories to be told and songs to be sung. Here to help you unlock them is VIBE, the Visualization and Interaction for Business and Entertainment team from Microsoft Research Redmond. Last Thursday, VIBE published three new Excel apps that provide new ways to visualize your data.
In a blog post on Inside Microsoft Research, Danyel Fisher of the VIBE team said, “When people have data to organize, in any form, it usually passes through Excel at some point — sometimes, just as a quick way to look at it, and sometimes, with tools like Flash Fill and charting and sorting — that’s where it stays.”
That doesn’t have to be the case. Take a look at Streamgraph in the image above, which Fisher calls one of the most beautiful visualization techniques to emerge in the last decade. Streamgraph examines data volume over time and provides a visual representation of how your data has changed.
The blog reports that VIBE has been exploring new visualization types as part of its work to develop new ways to display and interact with large amounts of data. These new downloads – Histogram 2D, Treemap, and Streamgraph– represent a first wave of this research.
In providing these apps for Excel users to better visualize data, researchers at VIBE are able to continue and advance their studies. For the full story, take a look at yesterday’s post on Inside Microsoft Research.
Deborah Pisano
Microsoft News Center Staff