The Best Data Visualization Projects of 2011

I almost didn't make a best-of list this year, but as I clicked through the year's post, it was hard not to. If last year (and maybe the year before) was the year of the gigantic graphic, this was the year of big data. Or maybe we've gotten better at filtering to the good stuff. (Fancy that.) So here are my favorites from 2011, ordered by preference. 1. While creator Mike Bostock made the initial commit to GitHub in late 2010, D3 hit its stride in 2011. 2. Who knew carrying around a stick that detects WiFi vertically could be so informative? 3. Media artist Roger Luke DuBois used online dating data to show the uniqueness of cities in America. 4. From Bloom, Planetary is an iPad app that visualizes your iTunes music as a solar system, bringing your data into a more playful and exploratory context. 5. The OECD has a lot of data about countries, and it can be hard to make all of data accessible at once. 6. This one from The New York Times amused me. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15.

Wind Map An invisible, ancient source of energy surrounds us—energy that powered the first explorations of the world, and that may be a key to the future. This map shows you the delicate tracery of wind flowing over the US. The wind map is a personal art project, not associated with any company. We've done our best to make this as accurate as possible, but can't make any guarantees about the correctness of the data or our software. Please do not use the map or its data to fly a plane, sail a boat, or fight wildfires :-) If the map is missing or seems slow, we recommend the latest Chrome browser. Surface wind data comes from the National Digital Forecast Database. If you're looking for a weather map, or just want more detail on the weather today, see these more traditional maps of temperature and wind.

NounProject Public Data Visualizations for Everyone In a recent post about the shutdown of government transparency sites such as data.gov, I wrote about the need for compelling ways of telling the stories buried within open data. Among the citizenry, talk of large datasets tends to inspire glazed-over eyes rather than civic engagement. Google's recent project the Public Data Explorer is an easy and invaluable tool for telling the stories buried in public data, allowing students, journalists and citizens to create their own visualizations without requiring much technical expertise. Launched in February, the Google Public Data Explorer lets users to create visualizations from a large number of sources, including the World Bank, the U.S. But you don't need to be a geek to get started with the tool. Some sample visualizations made with the tool: U.S. Overall U.S.