Susan Kistler on 25 Low-cost/no-cost Tech Tools for Data Visualization and Reporting

I am Susan Kistler, the Executive Director of the American Evaluation Association and the owner of iMeasureMedia. I usually don’t mention the latter on aea365, but today I want to be clear that I’m wearing my iMeasureMedia hat since AEA does not endorse particular products or services.

Last week, at Evaluation 2012, I gave a presentation on 25 low-cost/no-cost tech tools for Data Visualization and Reporting (thank you to the DVR TIG for its sponsorship of the session). With Paloma Faith crooning Do You Want the Truth or Something Beautiful in the background, we opened the session and took a look at tools that hopefully help us to merge truth and beauty.

Rad Resource: Download the full slidedeck from the AEA public eLibrary here.

Hot Tip: Consider downloading the pdf version where the notes are more readily accessible – the notes include the URL links for each item, cost information, and tips.

Rad Resources: So, what tools did we explore?

1. VisualJournalism.com (and Paloma Faith – Do you want the truth or something beautiful?)

2. EndlessYouTube

3. Official Seal Maker

4. Wallwisher

5. Amazing Multicolor Search Engine

6. ColorZilla

7. Office Timeline

8. amaztype

9. SnagIt

10. Intentional Data Visualization & Reporting Blog

11. Poll Everywhere

12. Pinterest

13. aea365

14. Prezi

15. Tagxedo

15. Tagxedo

Here are a few bonus items, included in the slide deck with notes:

16. CartoDB

17. Storify

18. PicturePalette

19. Color Palette Generator

20. Lovely Charts

21. fiverr

22. Pixton

23. Tableau Public

And, here are tools recommended by attendees at the session, also included in the slide deck with links and notes – and we’re soliciting aea365 posts from each one in hopes of learning more.

24. visual.ly

25. Photosynth

26. GIMP

27. amCharts

28. PDFill

Stay tuned for individual demonstrations on a number of these in the coming weeks, and thank you to all who attended the session.

The above represents my own opinions, and not necessarily that of AEA. Do you have questions, concerns, kudos, or content to extend this aea365 contribution? Please add them in the comments section for this post on the aea365 webpage so that we may enrich our community of practice. Would you like to submit an aea365 Tip? Please send a note of interest to aea365@eval.org. aea365 is sponsored by the American Evaluation Association and provides a Tip-a-Day by and for evaluators.