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Comment by janalsncm | Hacker News Reader

Innovation in data visualization? From a purely utilitarian view, the purpose of data visualization is to present data in a way people can understand it. If you’re constantly changing the method of visualizing the same thing it’s harder to do that. Sometimes a bar chart is best.

As far as cool visualizations go (that are better served as nonstandard visualizations) there are two recent ones that come to mind:

https://youtu.be/TkwXa7Cvfr8 (Especially around 16:56)

https://bbycroft.net/llm

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I'd also argue that even if all else is equal, a flashy visualization is worse than a conventional one, as you generally do not want to draw attention to the presentation if your aim is to convey information.

Fun counterpoint is that a flashier visualization may be 'better' than once optimized for accurate and efficient information conveyance IF it causes people to spend more time on the visualization. A flashy infographic conveys information less efficiently than a good chart, but if it causes people to engage with it more you may end up communicating your information to more people.

I don't have time for cool or innovative visualization. Show the bar chart, give me higher or lower is better.

It's strange to expect continuous innovation in anything where outputs are measurable against clear, stable targets. Once you've achieved the target, what further effort is necessary?

It's like asking what killed innovation in the shape of wheels. The answer is that we're able to make nearly perfect circular wheels, and there is no more optimal shape for a wheel than a circle, so no further gains for new innovations to capture.

I thought the youtube link would be this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SwIyd_gsGWA

I love data visualization but it very much reminds me of shred guitar playing, something I also use to very much love.

What non-guitar players are complaining about the lack of innovation in shred guitar playing? It is just not something that non-guitar players really care much about. Good shred vs bad shred is all going to sound the same to the non-guitarist anyway.

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