information-design on S Anand

Tue, 23 Dec 2025 05:36:05 +0000

I used to be a data visualization expert. I’m not sure I still am.

When Anthropic published an article about how AI is transforming their engineers’ work, I ran this prompt:

Suggest how the following engineer productivity patterns can be illustrated using interactive animated charts, graphs, or infographics.

Be diverse. Xenographics are welcome. Novel animation* / *interaction styles, artistry, xenographics, and diverse chart types are encouraged.

Be intuitive. A single glance should tell them exactly what insight we are trying to convey.

Its suggestions were better than mine.

Gemini 3 Pro was the best, followed by Claude (Opus/Sonnet 4.5) and then ChatGPT (GPT 5.2). They came up with:

a Throughput Flow showing commits as particles, going from a trickle to a stream
a Knowledge Neural Net where an engineer’s mental model transforms from isolated clusters into a dense mesh
a Dark Matter Radar detecting invisible tasks, a Feedback Pulse, a polyomino task stacking
… and more.

I have ~20 years of professional data visualization experience. I teach it. And these AIs just casually suggested more creative visualization ideas in 10-30 minutes than I probably would have come up with in a day.

This cost less than $2. The new per-day-rate for my expertise, I guess.

Luckily: my expertise has two parts.

Part 1: Ideating innovative visualizations.
Part 2: Selecting the right one for the job.

AI’s better at ideation. It’s fast and can generate creative ideas faster than I can sketch on a whiteboard. It knows xenographics and every visualization ever made and can recombine them in novel ways.

I’m better at selection. For now. Knowing which visualization requires knowing the audience, context, and intent. It requires taste (accumulated wisdom from showing the wrong chart to the wrong audience enough times).

But still, since AI can ideate, anyone can create innovative visualizations. No 20-years of experience, reading Edward Tufte’s books, or comparing a violin plot and a beeswarm. Just tell the story and AI will suggest ten creative ways to tell it. Take your pick.

I’m no longer a bottleneck.

Naveen Gattu - you asked me to clone myself. 10 years later, here’re the recipe: https://sanand0.github.io/datastories/anthropic-work/

Video

Thu, 14 Jan 2021 04:44:20 +0000

Always a pleasure when our work lands on Andy Kirk’s list 😊 – thanks for being a great motivator, Andy!

Visualising networks

Sat, 11 May 2013 11:52:43 +0000

Some slides from my talks on visualising networks. (These are part of a series of talks I’m giving at a number of forums; the one at The Fifth Elephant is open to public.)

Periodic table of visualization methods

Mon, 08 Jan 2007 12:00:00 +0000

Periodic table of visualization methods. 100 visualizations (graphs, diagrams, etc.) organised into 6 groups (data, information, concept, strategy, metaphor, compound), and arranged exactly like the periodic table. (This, in itself, is a lovely visualization.) It includes diverse visuals from the Metro Map (e.g. London Underground Map) and cartoons to scatterplots and treemaps. Just browse it. It’s wonderful.

Comments

Rajlaxmi 16 Feb 2007 6:37 pm: gr8 link n well explained. wonder how u get these links

Data visualization

Wed, 25 Jan 2006 12:00:00 +0000

Data visualization. Examples of charts that convey a lot of information in a visually obvious way.

CNet Big Picture

Mon, 03 Oct 2005 12:00:00 +0000

CNet has a tool that lets you see the big picture for articles.

Edward Tufte

Fri, 01 Jul 2005 12:00:00 +0000

Edward Tufte. Professor Emeritus at Yale University. Taught statistical evidence, information design, and interface design. Working on includes digital video, sculpture, printmaking.

Google News Map

Wed, 24 Dec 2003 12:00:00 +0000

Google news map

Textarc

Wed, 15 May 2002 12:00:00 +0000

Textarc – a visual way of representing text.

Strategic competitor

Tue, 09 Apr 2002 12:00:00 +0000

Strategic competitor. A cool way of presenting news.