Prior to attending Strata, I had participated and presented in several data visualization programs that housed within larger, related conferences. The first for me was BayCHI – a conference specialized towards Human Computer Interaction, followed by DUX – more geared towards Interaction Design. Both touched on data visualization as more of a niche than anything else. The only pure data visualization conferences I attended in these years (the late aughts) were always academic in nature, geared towards progressing the methodology and research to further this burgeoning field. At the time, companies specializing in data visualization, or any commercially viable software applications were few and far between. Most of the public-facing examples still existed within academia, as the industry had not yet matured.

This year’s Strata couldn’t have been more of a departure from those humble beginnings. Not just data visualization and their interfaces, but every aspect of the discipline now had vibrancy. From the business of selling data to the pontification of price-points surrounding a marketplace for curated, maintained feeds. One-off student projects had become viable business models, researchers were now Chief Data Officers; opportunity was – and is – everywhere. The conference was augmented by legions of engineers, familiar to handling enterprise-class datasets and building applications on a massive scale. One couldn’t walk five steps without hearing the word “Hadoop”, and infrastructure behind big data had its own program. The visualization and interface components were overwhelmed, as an impetus for harvest, acquire, and process this exponential spike in business and personal data became a priority.

However, given my background, I gravitated toward Strata’s Interface track, which discussed the output, the end result of big data. Presentations centered on the best practices for the development of effective visualizations, principals that developers should hold true for the most efficient design and distribution of their work. Citing elements such as cross-browser compatibility, server-side scripting, or mobile compatibility – these technical heuristics applied not only to data visualizations, but any interactive project as a whole. Although a initially seeming like an introductory lesson to successful interactive project planning, these mandates were well received, as dictation to designers, as they begin to craft meaningful data experiences.

I found the non-traditional extensions extremely engaging. Exposing data from out of the browser onto the television, as was the case with Sportvision’s use within major sports broadcasts, and presenting data visualization in a unique, lean-back context. Expanding on the non-traditional delivery, real-time collaborative data analysis was presented as a way to improve productivity for Formula One racing teams. The modularity of data analysis was everywhere at Strata, from augmented reality showing the historical evolution of the bohemian Haight Street, to embedding sensors within children’s toys, logging hours of play and tracking levels of cognitive learning.

The greatest level of juxtaposition – that which stood out the most in comparison to the others, were the student presentations by self-titled ‘Creative Technologists’. These blew the doors off the building. Masquerading as a talk on the front-end coding frameworks, the focus became placed on technologies that could go about beautifying (as opposed to just displaying, or visualizing) data, brought the dimension of aesthetic into the conversation for the first time. In comparison to the more logistical and tactical presentations, the application of beauty and subjective measure stood out as a finished, crafted product. Even though the data visualization landscape has changed considerably, I was glad to see academia could still show some vibrancy.

Nick Cawthon is Director of Experience Architecture at Organic