Data Visualization

History of Data Visualization

[Page 400]The researcher who engages in data visualization is joining a long and rich historical tradition. The earliest known examples of data visualization—carved maps and star charts painted on cave walls—date back to the prehistoric period. Progressive developments in observing and representing the stars yielded advancements in stellar navigation, enabling trade and exploration. In the premodern era, Chinese cartographers pioneered developments in mapmaking and early attempts at rendering 3D forms, such as topographical maps. Improvements in instrumentation extending from the Islamic Golden Age (c. 800–1258 CE) into the Enlightenment Era in Europe (c. 1750–1789) further allowed for the collection of more and better data, rendering visualization more practical as a tool for presenting data in a concise way.

Several innovations emerged from data analytics in the 18th and 19th centuries. J. H. Lambert introduced a variety of improvements in cartography. William Playfair is generally credited with pioneering several visual techniques including the pie chart, the bar chart, and the time-series line graph. Joseph Priestly popularized the time line. Florence Nightingale, in the mid-1800s, brought data visualization into policy-making circles through her advocacy for public health and sanitation. John Snow similarly demonstrated the importance of data visualization to medicine and public health, identifying the waterborne nature of cholera by plotting data from a London outbreak. In spite of these advances, until the early 20th century, data visualization primarily remained a tool of academics and elites. Early visualizations were hand-drawn, making them costly and time-consuming to produce. However, the expansion of print and audiovisual media and, later, computing technology expanded the reach of visualizations and the capacity to produce them. Such advances significantly lowered costs and barriers to entry.

Guiding Principles