Show HN: Turn JS visualizations into data products anyone can use | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: Turn JS visualizations into data products anyone can use

blockspring.com

53 pointsblockspring20 comments

I think this is a cool idea, and the blog post made sense. This is a really nice way of making visualisations reusable.

Judging by how others have missed the point though, you might want to work on simplifying the pitch. How about starting the post with a simple diagram explaining the flow like:

(code your visualisation) -> (add the BlockSpring API) -> (we generate a web interface for your visualisation) -> (now anyone can use their data with your visualisation)

Ha, mind me copying and pasting this until we have time to make a real diagram?

It's funny how much better other people can be at explaining your own product.

And thanks for your feedback. If you have any advice on the API itself or any other ideas, definitely let us know!

Feel free - all my comments are CC0 :)

It's a JS visualization library. I don't see any special "anyone can use it" features. The demo sure seems to require the user to program in JS.

What am I missing?

Hmm, so maybe our blogpost was unclear about that.

The BlockSpring library just lets people post their own work onto the BlockSpring home page (www.blockspring.com).

Our library just lets you specify variables in your code that a user should be able to input. Then when you push it to BlockSpring, we generate a forms and other inputs so users can change these variables.

Truth is the BlockSpring library works just as well with non-visualizations. We just figured it was more obvious to have people changing colors in a graph, then adjusting some other input in a js script.

Does that make sense? We're still working on how to phrase this idea :)

I'm on the same page as the parent comment. It literally looks like any other Javascript graph framework.

There seems to be no additional tools added to make it intuitive for non engineers. You want them to run web servers, save text documents and edit JSON markup. Not a single one of my non engineering coworkers would ever make it through this on their own. Further, if they make a mistake in the JSON syntax they're going to be ruined. Absolutely no chance that they figure out what's wrong. JSON syntax is pretty straightforward for engineers, but others aren't going to understand the requirement of quotes, escaping, etc. The JSON markup has a ton of parameters that aren't explained and aren't super obvious.

I understand what you're trying to provide by what you've just stated, but this product definitely isn't that, unfortunately.

Got it - just updated some language in our blog post since this was clearly confusing :)

Also added a link to the main page.

When an engineer does all that code, it gets posted to the front page of blockspring.com. That front-page definitely does not require code to use.

Thanks for pointing this out

You've completely missed the point. The site is for developers who make visualisations to be able to allow users to use the visualisations with their own data. It requires you to first create the vis code, then use the Blockspring API to wrap the data source, then the website auto-generates a data upload form that populates the plot.

As someone unfamiliar with the product entirely, this point was very non-obvious. Especially since nothing on the original page linked to the main ui.

Blahah got it right! Sorry but it's our bad. We're updating the post right now to clarify.

I think the missing piece is BlockSpring won't help you code your visualization, but using the API auto-generates a UI so non-engineers can load in their own data, customize, etc.

Here's a link to a finished product: https://www.blockspring.com/graph_templates/83

It's a pity I can't edit sample data in-browser. It would be much easier to do it in-browser for simple data sets - shorter feedback loop.

Interesting - are you picturing editing sample data when you are previewing a graph?

For example, on this page https://www.blockspring.com/graph_templates/60 and the preview modals, you could toy with the sample data so you get a better understanding of how the graph works?

I also think this would be nice - allowing in-place data editing and copy/paste would be great. It lowers the barrier to trying out the product, which will ultimately engage more people. I actually browsed away from the plot page when I realised I had to upload data to use it (even if I could download the sample data and re-upload it).

That's great feedback! We will definitely implement this.

Have a look at datawrapper.de - as far as I remember, they use handsontable for data table editing. Datawrapper visualisations are used by many journalism-related sites around the world - seems to be a successful model.

This looks very, very cool. It's basically exactly what I've been looking for to make data journalism easier.

Do you offer some sort of API for using the web interface? I'd love to bake BlockSpring right into our CMS. Feel free to contact me@morgante.net if you'd be interested in discussing.

Thanks morgante!

The API for consuming graphs is something we're working on this week.

I'll definitely send you an email. We'd love to hear more about your use case.

Very interesting. I like the dashboard look 'n feel. Are you using a pre-existing JS library for the dashboards or did you develop your own ?

Hey thanks frenchhacker. We made some modifications to gridster for the dashboards. It's a great library, check it out - http://gridster.net/.

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