Our latest news, opinions, insights and an initial glimpse into some recently launched projects.

Our latest news & insights 

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World bank

Human capital animation

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Swiss Re

Closing the protection gap

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Insurance Information Institute

Dynamic economics dashboard

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Digital toolkit

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Queen Mary University London

Research highways

Born in 2009, Soak&#39;s childhood home was St Francis House - a former Primitive Methodist chapel built in the 1800s. 

We knew it as converted office space, and there, Soak&#39;s early years took shape.

Once the teenage years hit, Soak moved homes twice - travelling from Bank Plain, the former &#39;Banking Circle&#39; of the city, to Millenium Plain, overlooking the famous Millenium Library at the Forum.

Now into its adulthood, Soak has found a comfortable home within the historic area of Colegate - a bustling collection of streets, lanes, and alleyways which have been settled since Saxon times.

Soak sits now in a Georgian building with high ceilings, delicate wainscotting, and windows that require someone over 6 feet tall to open them. The laptops are whirring, and the creative flow is flowing.

Nestled within the Creative Quarter of the city, our neighbours feature bars, cafes, pubs, crypts, and cloisters - a sprinkling of old and new for the next stage in Soak&#39;s journey.

We&#39;re happy to announce our new home to you all!

Soak Digital has explored many corners of the fine city that is Norwich.

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We've Moved!

Here are our thoughts on how things might evolve.

<h3>Artificial Intelligence</h3>

AI will profoundly impact many industries. We believe that if leveraged ethically and responsibly, it has the potential to streamline some of the more labour-intensive aspects of data visualisation. If AI could be utilised to efficiently generate bespoke visualisations tailored to specific business needs, or individual user preferences - this allows more time for analysis of the data, and more time for deeper consideration of the insights.

<h3>Immersive visualisations</h3>

With Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR), we see a potential to bring data visualisation into immersive 3D spaces, allowing users to navigate and explore data in multi-dimensional environments. This has great possibilities for accessibility of data, as well as profound implications in fields such as medicine, climate science, and urban planning.

<h3>Hyper-personalisation</h3>

As the world fills with more and more personalised data, we would like to see dashboards and data tools adapting to individual user behaviours in real time. This shift would turn static, one-size-fits-all dashboards into fluid, user-specific BI tools that are both powerful and easy to use.

<h3>Natural Language interfaces</h3>

Integrating natural language processing (NLP) into data visualisations would allow users to interact with data on a more human level. Instead of manually adjusting filters or constructing queries, users will be able to ask questions like &quot;what&#39;s driving this quarter&#39;s revenue growth?&quot; and receive intuitive visual representations of the answer. This will help to democratise data access, making it easier for a broader range of users to interact with complex datasets.

<h3>Ethical and transparent visualisation</h3>

As data becomes increasingly central to decision-making, the ethics of data and data visualisation should also be paramount. We imagine a future where specific transparency features allow users to track the origins, assumptions, and biases behind the data. Visualisations will need to evolve to ensure ethical representation, allowing users to understand the process of data collection, and ensuring that visual decisions (like scales or colour schemes) do not mislead or manipulate.

<h3>Collaborative and social visualisations</h3>

We want to see visualisations become more collaborative, allowing teams to interact with the same data set in real time. Visualisations should also become more social, with features allowing users to share insights, comments on specific data points, and integrate findings directly into their workflows.

<h3>Sustainability and minimalism in visualisation</h3>

At Soak, we already place a high value on sustainability and minimalism in data visualisation - and we predict that this will become the norm, with the industry embracing a change towards clarity, simplicity, and eco-efficiency. As the cognitive load of information increases, there will be a demand for visualisations that strip away unnecessary complexity, focusing on delivering the core message as succinctly as possible.

Data already has a profound impact on our businesses, organisations, and our everyday lives. As we move into the next decade, we hope that data will become more accessible and immersive, and you won&#39;t need to have a phD in mathematics to understand it.

Over the next decade, data visualisation is poised to undergo transformative changes, driven by advances in artificial intelligence, augmented reality, interactivity, and personalised insights.

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Decoding the next decade - Visualising the near future of data

The exercise was to conceive ways of elevating specific ‘behaviour change over time’ visualisations to be more informative and engaging.

After evaluating a range of sample data sets, we conceptualised our approach using several charting styles and variations that we refined with regular input from the Ezra Team.

The result is a suite of static and interactive charts that are impactful, accessible and versatile for use across multiple touchpoints.

EZRA, a revolutionary global virtual coaching and learning provider, engaged Soak to provide a short-term data visualisation consultancy to evolve some elements of their brilliant customer insights portal.

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Visualising behaviour change

Featuring an illustrative future landscape, the tool uses a series of interactive pathways to show the interconnected nature of industry and day-to-day life.

Within the landscape, users will be able to access a wealth of targeted content and media to learn more about the importance of decarbonisation and its positive impact on our planet, economy and everyday lives.

IDRIC was launched in 2021 to accelerate solutions in industrial decarbonisation. It collaborates with 200 partners, including academic institutions, industry, community representatives and policymakers, to address urgent innovation needs - realising goals with impact and integrating knowledge across disciplines and sectors. 
IDRIC is hosted by Heriot-Watt University and initially funded by the government-backed UKRI Industrial Decarbonisation Challenge.

See more at:

<a href="https://idric.org/">idric.org</a>

<a href="https://www.hw.ac.uk/">hw.ac.uk</a>

<a href="https://www.ukri.org/what-we-do/browse-our-areas-of-investment-and-support/industrial-decarbonisation/">ukri.org</a>

We are delighted to be working with IDRIC (the Industrial Decarbonisation Research and Innovation Centre) on the design and development of an immersive visualisation that will allow users to explore what a green industrial future would look like.

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Visualising a Green Industrial Future with IDRIC

The trepidation swirls around your stomach, a whole kaleidoscope of butterflies, fluttering around. But as soon as I entered the office, I knew I was in the right place (for me, not just that I got the location correct!)

Warm welcomes, smiles and introductions, cups of coffee and biscuits, presentations and training. I was shown my desk; my own space within Soak, my seat for creativity and fun. Opening the cover of my new notebook, the fresh untouched pages rang synonymous with the fresh opportunities that awaited me.

There were personal touches, a warm welcome message on my Slack from our co-founder Jake, and a personalised mug with my coffee order (oat milk, strong, 2 sugars if you’re wondering). 

The first part of my day detailed the history of Soak. From humble beginnings to being now a hallmark, award-winning digital design agency. 

I learned the ethos, visions and values, which are displayed every day by the Soak team.

My brain buzzing with new information, my mind taking it all in. 

By my second day, I’d been invited for a pub lunch and natter with two colleagues. From Jacob and Russell, I learned the inner workings of Soak, the types of music everyone likes (more on that later), the Soak socials, and the bright future. 

Music is a very important tool for the Soak world. Each day the speakers are warmed up, slowly with some throwback Britpop and by the afternoon, the caffeine buzz hits and so does the input of Nush with some drum and bass. 

I’m still trying to get Vengaboys in the mix somehow. 

The rest of the week allowed me to fill page upon page of scribble in my notebook, taking in as much information as I could retain. 

I was able to sit down with members of different departments; Technical, Creative, Client Services and Operations. 

I went on a journey through the creative process, seeing the magic happen. Learning about project kick-offs to project launches. Looking through the catalogue of amazing work Soak has produced, even the colourways excited me.

I began to see how the inside of the Soak machine worked. How everyone represents a different chord, but together, a harmonious tune is played. 

Throughout the week, I was introduced to different clients and added to a multitude of Slack channels, seeing live updates coming in. One Slack channel in particular caught my eye…I bore witness to the beauty of the Soak-Pets thread. Obviously adding in a picture of my British short-haired cat named Socks.

By the time Friday had rolled around, I was fully immersed, fully stuck in and a fully-fledged member of the Soak team, and I cannot wait for the opportunities ahead.

Buzzed into the building, armed with a takeaway coffee and excitement, I made my way up the stairs to the second floor. (I would later learn the lift was a far better option).

It’s always nerve-wracking, isn’t it? Starting a new job. Am I going to like it? Will I fit in? Will I be good at the job?!

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My first week at Soak: Soaked in opportunities

We have been working on an immersive data storytelling experience that will reveal layers of information and data, providing compelling insights and new perspectives on the story of the ‘unsinkable’ ship. 

This non-interactive, Titanic infographic commemorates the anniversary and provides a few sneak peeks into what’s to come.

Today marks the 112th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic, which led to the deaths of over 1,500 people on 15th April 1912.

The story captivates us all, but how much do we really know about the ship, the tragic sinking and the people who set sail on that fateful maiden voyage 112 years ago?

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Source: <a href="https://www.encyclopedia-titanica.org/">Encyclopedia Titanica</a>

The Titanic - A tragedy told through data

AI-powered accessibility tools are becoming increasingly prevalent and can help businesses and organisations in various ways, from automating accessibility testing to providing real-time accessibility feedback to developers and designers. 

For example, AI tools can instantly analyse a website&#39;s colour scheme and suggest alternative colour combinations if non-compliant. They can also test for compliance against Web Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) by providing alternative text for images, ensuring correct colour contrast, accurate audio and video descriptions, and keyboard accessibility shortcuts.

During our research, we’ve found several interesting examples of how AI is being used commercially to improve complaint accessibility globally. Solutions like <a href="https://www.bemyeyes.com/">Be My Eyes</a> are working with <a href="https://openai.com/">Open AI</a> to develop tools that help businesses deliver more accessible customer experiences, reducing resolution time and cost by up to 60%. Similarly, AI-powered accessibility tools such as <a href="https://equally.ai/">Equally AI</a> and <a href="https://accessibe.com/accesswidget/artificial-intelligence">AccessiBe</a> are utilising machine learning algorithms to ensure that websites and applications are compliant and accessible.

Big players, including Microsoft and Google, are rolling out pay-per-use solutions such as <a href="https://cloud.google.com/vision?hl=en">Cloud Vision</a>, enabling developers to integrate vision detection features within applications, including image labelling, face and landmark detection, optical character recognition (OCR), and the tagging of explicit content.

A recent report by The World Bank identifies that people with disabilities represent about 15% of the world&#39;s population and have an estimated $8 trillion in annual disposable income. There is little doubt that businesses that exclude people with disabilities are not only risking reputational damage but are also missing out on a large and valuable market segment.

The Soak team has been actively testing some of these tools and is taking a holistic approach to effectively integrating AI into our accessibility strategy and broader product development. However, privacy and ethical considerations must be carefully considered when using AI, especially when solutions require access to a user&#39;s personal information to function correctly.

Early-stage technology development can be a little like the Wild West, but it&#39;s essential that these protocols are developed and tested with a wide range of users to perform without bias and successfully represent the needs of all user groups.

As this technology continues to proliferate, it&#39;s essential to keep up to speed with regulatory legislation such as the EU&#39;s Artificial Intelligence Act, which sets out rules for developing, modifying, and using AI-driven products, services, and systems. However, the EU clearly sees the potential of this technology and has recently launched a series of <a href="https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_24_383">AI innovation packages</a> to support AI startups and SMEs.

Moving forward, we expect to see more platforms and AI integrations into existing software packages that will help expedite and underpin the delivery of a wide range of digital services and solutions, making them more valuable and accessible to everyone.

As we all know, accessibility is crucial to modern web development. It ensures that websites and applications are usable by all individuals, including those with disabilities. 

However, creating accessible websites and applications can be challenging, and organisations often struggle to implement the appropriate levels of accessibility.

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AI and accessibility - a match made in heaven? 

While Figma provides an excellent foundation for our diverse range of tasks - from data storytelling to interactive data tools and websites - we enhance our design process with a selection of impressive third-party tools and plugins to improve efficiency and productivity.

Navigating the crowded landscape of third-party plugins can be daunting, making it challenging to identify the most suitable tools for your specific needs. To streamline this process, we&#39;ve compiled a list of the top five plugins that we rely on extensively at Soak, spanning a wide range of projects. While we utilise additional plugins, these particular tools consistently support our ongoing projects.

Figma is universally recognised as the leading industry standard tool for UX, UI and product design, and serves as the primary tool for our creative projects at Soak.

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<h2>1. Chart</h2>

As a digital and data agency, <a href="https://www.figma.com/community/plugin/734590934750866002">Chart</a> is a fantastic tool in helping us create several chart types, quickly and accurately, across various data visualisation projects. It can generate 18 different chart types using either real or randomised data. It also gives us full creative control of the styling of the charts, from colours, fonts, size and shape, with extensive flexibility to create visualisations unique to the project we are working on.

An impressive feature is that Chart seamlessly integrates with various data sources, including Excel, Google Sheets and REST APIs, allowing for simple data importation. Other great features include the creation of multiple chart instances, the generation of random data with diverse trends and the capability to edit and update charts effortlessly.

<h2>2. Attention Insight</h2>

The <a href="https://www.figma.com/community/plugin/968765016617421513">Attention Insight</a> plugin is an insightful tool that is essential for our UX and user journey process at Soak. The tool instantly predicts where users will look after interacting with our designs and effectively anticipates user behaviour to help streamline our process. This is great at helping us preemptively address potential issues, saving valuable time and avoiding post-launch fixes. The plugin also allows for smooth A/B testing, item visibility and identifying components that draw the most amount of attention.

<h2>3. A11y - Colour Contrast Checker</h2>

<a href="https://www.figma.com/community/plugin/733159460536249875">Colour Contrast Checker</a> is a fantastic asset for ensuring all text within our projects adheres to web content accessibility standards. It can sometimes be tricky to manage accessibility when expressing ourselves creatively so this plugin is an incredibly useful addition to help keep our projects legible and clear. It works by checking the contrast ratio of visible text within a frame, providing scores in line with AA and/or AAA compliance.

<h2>4. Pitchdeck Presentation Studio</h2>

The <a href="https://www.figma.com/community/plugin/838925615018625519">Pitchdeck Presentation Studio</a> plugin is a fantastic tool for presentation creation in Figma, offering intuitive support for animations and real-time previews within the platform. With seamless export options to PowerPoint, Keynote, Google Slides, and PDFs, we can export and share presentations with ease, across a variety of use cases.

Pitchdeck allows us to create custom-designed presentations away from the restraints of PowerPoint or Google Slides, ensuring creativity is at the heart of every presentation we create. 

<h2>5. Coolors</h2>

<a href="https://www.figma.com/community/plugin/1068919813159975006">Coolors</a> is a handy colour palette generator plugin which boasts an extensive database of colour combinations that are quick and easy to access. This plugin is particularly useful when we engage with complex data visualisation designs that require a broad range of colours to reflect a variety of data points, but also work in an aesthetically pleasing manner. 

Coolors helps us to create beautiful colour palettes that compliment our client’s brand and create maximum contrast in data visualisation.

Top 5 Figma plugins for a smooth UI and data visualisation design process

The World Bank

The summit was in response to close engagements with governments across Sub-Saharan Africa on the need to highlight the vital role of human capital in economic growth. It was also the first Human Capital Summit at a Heads of States level in Africa. 

Sub-Saharan Africa entered the last decade with significant deficits in human capital (the knowledge, skills, and health that people accumulate over their lives). The region’s average Human Capital Index (HCI) was the lowest across all the world’s regions, with a significant proportion of African countries at the bottom of the HCI.

The animation, ahead of the keynote speaker, was played at the start of the final day and uses a narrative centred around three core themes: Economic Growth, Resilient Systems and Social Cohesion. 

Data visualisation and storytelling are used throughout the sequence to emphasise and clarify important facts and figures that would resonate with the audience of Heads of State, Leaders, and Policymakers. In a first of its kind data-based and policy integrated storytelling, the innovative approach was very well received by online and in-person viewers.

The World Bank asked us to produce a data-driven animation for The Africa Human Capital Heads of State Summit held in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, on the 25th - 26th of July 2023.

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The financial burden of such events is enormous, but despite this threat, many people and businesses remain uninsured, leaving them vulnerable when a natural catastrophe strikes.

Swiss RE asked us to develop an interactive data tool illustrating the protection gap and losses from various natural disasters across five continents and twelve countries.

The interface centres around a stylised (mapbox) 3D globe. Clicking on regions and countries reveals the protection gap and total economic losses over the last ten years with the option to deep-dive into more in-depth analysis.

The fully integrated tool is a perfect example of how information can be more accessible, understandable and interesting using interactive data visualisation and information design.

Catastrophes such as hurricanes, earthquakes, floods and winter storms have become more intense and frequent, threatening people and economies worldwide.

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World Wide Fund for Nature

The new toolkit underpins an extensive report that provides the first synthesis and assessment of the gendered dynamics within the global illegal wildlife trade (IWT). It looks at gender-informed research, field evidence and concepts relating to poaching, trafficking and consumption of wildlife products, and international governance and policy.

A suite of structured, multilingual lessons packed with multi-media content, interactive scenarios and knowledge tests enables practitioners to bring gender analysis into their programmes and policies systematically and to combat illegal wildlife trade.

The campaign website gives users an overview of the program and provides a natural gateway into the new digital toolkit.

We have been working with The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) to design and develop a new eLearning toolkit to educate policymakers, practitioners and academics about gender dynamics within the illegal wildlife trade.

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The design, technical and maintenance considerations for the project were several fold.

From a design perspective there was very little direction provided beyond needing to establish a data visualisation style that complimented the Triple-I branding and brand assets. We needed to identify appropriate styles to display the sets of time series data into a meaningful layout, enabling comparison within relevant data groups.

From a technical perspective we had to develop the dashboard as a standalone portable JS based application so it could be provided as a code bundle and embedded into Triple-I’s existing infrastructure with minimal effort.

Soak has recently been working with the eminently trusted Insurance Information Institute (iii.org) to design and develop a dynamic Economics dashboard.

Triple-I’s Insurance Economics Dashboard provides data-driven insight into the performance of the insurance industry, looking at historical trends and the key economic drivers for current and upcoming years. Soak worked with senior Triple-I stakeholders and economists to visualise and bring to life the data in a compelling and engaging way.

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Queen Mary University of London

The programme looks to raise awareness by:

<ul><li>Focusing on the big questions that affect us all: the sustainability of the planet, our digital future, people’s health and wellbeing, communication, creativity and culture</li><li>Delivering real-world impact: Through investment in the research and industrial ecosystem on and around our campuses, our global outlook and a passion for partnership</li><li>Harnessing the power of collaboration, partnership and our uniquely diverse and inclusive community with students and staff from more than 170 countries around the world</li></ul>

To support the research, we’ve designed and developed a data tool that allows users to explore the global impact of Queen Mary’s research.

The tool uses a map-based UI, allowing users to navigate several highway-specific case studies and the impact locations using a single, fluid interface.

Additional case studies can be added/managed using the underlying CMS, and the tool has been seamlessly integrated into the Queen Mary website.

Queen Mary’s U is a leading, research-intensive university. Their Research Highways programme brings this ethos to life perfectly. Combining expertise across disciplines, designed to tackle some of society’s biggest challenges, grasp new opportunities and transform lives across the globe.