The latest news, views, insights and a small selection of recently launched projects.

A more informal space where you can learn more about SOAK, our people, our latest projects and our thoughts on the latest trends and developments in the data visualisation space.

Under the hood

Developed by German psychologists, the Gestalt (German word for form, shape, or figure) principles describe how we interpret the complexities of the world around us. 

Understanding how the human brain processes visual information helps guide our decision-making and enables us to create more effective and informative visualisations.

The human brain is excellent at recognising patterns and pattern anomalies. Data visualisation underpins our cognitive processes and taps into our visual system, making the complex understandable and accessible.

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Using science to help influence our approach is hugely beneficial, but other practical considerations allow us to define and scope each project in detail. 

Mission:

<ul><li>Why am I creating this visualisation?</li><li>Who is it for?</li><li>What do they need to understand?</li><li>What actions do I need to enable? </li><li>How will it be consumed? </li><li>What are the most important takeaways? </li></ul>

Content:

<ul><li>Is the data robust and correctly formatted? </li><li>Have I defined the metrics that really matter?</li><li>Have I identified the crucial relationships? </li><li>Will interactivity improve the experience? </li><li>Frequency of updates? </li><li>Is there a story to tell? </li></ul>

Structure &amp; Design:

<ul><li>Which visualisation techniques and chart types will provide the most focus and clarity? </li><li>How do we highlight what matters and remove the noise? </li><li>Which technologies and libraries will we use? </li></ul>

Delivery:

<ul><li>What levels of integration are needed? </li><li>How will we manage/automate updates? </li><li>Deployment workflows? </li><li>Hosting protocols? </li></ul>

Of course, data visualisation is nothing new (see our story about <a href="https://soak.co.uk/news-and-insights/ada-lovelace-the-mother-of-modern-computing?internal">Ada Lovelace</a>). However, time-poor audiences with ever-decreasing attention spans now make it an essential part of your customer experience and communications strategy. 

Technology has revolutionised how we can analyse, organise and visualise data in recent years, and this trend shows no sign of slowing down. 

Working with an international client base, we are well-versed in deploying and integrating our data solutions into an array of IT infrastructures and have the <a href="https://soak.co.uk/showcase?internal">case studies</a> to prove it. 

If you would like to harness the power of your data, please <a href="https://soak.co.uk/contact?internal">get in touch</a>; we&#39;d love to hear from you - The opportunities are endless!

Why a picture can be worth a thousand words

As a specialist <a href="https://soak.co.uk/data-visualisation?internal">data visualisation agency</a>, we are armed with a wealth of expertise and experience, offering a distinct advantage in transforming your raw data into intuitive and visually appealing representations. By collaborating closely with our clients, we craft visual narratives that speak directly to your unique requirements and target audiences.

One of the primary reasons to commission SOAK as a specialist data visualisation agency is our unparalleled expertise. The field of data visualisation demands a deep understanding of data analysis, design principles, and human perception. We have a comprehensive knowledge of cutting-edge techniques, tools, and best practices, ensuring that any visualisation project we undertake delivers accurate, informative and visually engaging outcomes.

Effective data-vis serves as a vehicle for enhanced communication. Complex data, often overwhelming and perplexing on its own, can be transformed into intuitive visuals that convey key insights and trends with remarkable clarity. Through strategic design choices and attention to detail, SOAK helps organisations communicate their message more effectively to stakeholders, clients, and decision-makers, enabling informed choices to be made against reliable data.

Harnessing expertise and unlocking the power of visual communication.

Deciphering complex data sets and conveying insights in a clear and compelling manner has become a crucial challenge for organisations across industries. As <a href="https://soak.co.uk/data-visualisation?internal">data visualisation</a> is established as a powerful tool for effective communication, forward-thinking organisations turn to specialists like SOAK to unlock the true potential of their data.

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We recognise that no two organisations are the same, so we work closely with clients to understand their data, goals, and desired outcomes. This collaborative approach ensures that the visualisations produced are tailored precisely to address our client&#39;s unique challenges and objectives, providing meaningful and actionable insights.

The true power of data visualisation lies in its ability to facilitate data exploration and analysis. By transforming complex datasets into interactive visual representations, we have empowered organisations to uncover hidden patterns, correlations, and trends that might otherwise have remained elusive. 

Our expertise is in selecting the most appropriate visualisations and interactive features to enhance data analysis combining that with aesthetics and design to capture and retain attention. We excel in the art of visual design, leveraging appropriate colour schemes, typography, layout, and other design devices to create visually stunning and impactful solutions. 

Commissioning SOAK as a specialist data visualisation firm also offers a time and cost-efficient solution for our clients. Developing high-quality data visualisations requires significant time, effort, and technical expertise. By partnering with us, our clients can tap into our hard earned expertise, saving valuable resources and freeing up internal teams for other critical tasks. We efficiently handle the entire process, from data analysis and design to implementation and maintenance (should you need us to), ensuring that you can make the most of your data within the constraints of time and budget.

See some of our <a href="https://soak.co.uk/showcase?internal">client work</a> or how SOAK can help your organisation.

Why organisations should entrust data visualisation to specialist companies

Great data design makes data accessible and can transform a business or organisation on many levels, delivering improved understanding, informed decision-making, efficiency, and profitability. 

The fundamentals of great data design stem from having a coherent strategy, a clear understanding of the brief and a team that can thoroughly interrogate the data to find trends, patterns and surface information that may otherwise remain hidden.

Our designers and data engineers understand the mechanics of data and the vast vocabulary of charting styles, libraries and 3rd party software applications that enable us to design and integrate it as effectively and efficiently as possible.

At a glance, <a href="https://soak.co.uk/data-visualisation?internal">data visualisation</a> is about making data work harder. But in reality, it&#39;s much more than that. Data visualisation involves transforming raw data into meaningful insights that can be easily understood by others.

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Many of the data experiences we create must also be contextualised or require a strong supporting narrative. Data storytelling can be a compelling, immersive and emotive way to engage an audience whilst surfacing important information and statistics.

Suppose the <a href="https://soak.co.uk/data-visualisation?internal">data visualisation</a> or tool is interactive. If this is the case, the data can be further developed and underpinned with an experience that facilitates easy exploration and optimised levels of interactivity across all touchpoints. 

So, much like the data itself, the solutions we design and develop come in many shapes and sizes. They&#39;re often bespoke and always optimised to deliver information in the most accessible, attractive and innovative ways possible.

Data visualisation and design

Not bound by the limitations of pre-packaged tools, we can craft dashboards tailored precisely to our client&#39;s unique requirements. From custom visualisations and charting types that resonate with stakeholders to user-relevant interactive elements that engage and deliver the right insights, the custom approach can empower organisations by transforming the value they get out of their data. 

Flexibility and scalability are cornerstones of bespoke solutions. In a rapidly evolving business landscape, organisations need agile tools that can adapt and grow alongside their ever-changing needs. Unlike their off-the-shelf counterparts, custom dashboards offer a malleable framework that can be expanded and reconfigured as data analysis requirements evolve. 

Whether it&#39;s accommodating new data sources, incorporating real-time updates, or scaling to handle developing datasets, organisations find significant benefits in the inherent flexibility of custom solutions.

Customisation, flexibility, and security: Unleashing the power of bespoke solutions

In an era where data reigns supreme, organisations increasingly seek ways to extract meaningful insights from the vast amount of information at their fingertips. While off-the-shelf tools like Power BI or Tableau have long dominated the data visualisation landscape, a rising trend is shaking the status quo: custom dashboards. These tailor-made solutions offer a myriad of benefits, providing organisations with the keys to unlock the full potential of their data.

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The integration prowess of bespoke dashboards further solidifies their value proposition. Seamlessly connecting with existing systems and databases, these tailor-made applications can seamlessly amalgamate and aggregate data from multiple sources, providing holistic views of organisational functions and operations. 

Security and privacy concerns have become paramount in the digital age, and bespoke solutions rise to the occasion. We can implement robust security measures that safeguard sensitive data by leveraging full control over the development process. From advanced encryption protocols to stringent access controls, bespoke dashboards provide a reassuring fortress, protecting valuable insights like prized assets.

Moreover, custom dashboards open the door to creative data storytelling, something SOAK excels at. With the freedom to innovate and not be shackled by mundane, cookie-cutter visualisations, we can turn data into captivating narratives, delivering insights that leave a lasting impact. Equally, we ensure our client&#39;s brand identity is carefully brought to life and protected within the dashboard environment.

While off-the-shelf tools like Power BI offer convenience and a large user community, the long-term cost-effectiveness of bespoke solutions must be considered. Subscription fees and additional costs for customization and advanced features can quickly accumulate, making pre-packaged tools a costly affair. In contrast, a custom solution offers the opportunity for long-term savings, especially when complex data visualisation requirements necessitate extensive customization.

As organisations embrace the era of data-driven decision-making, the allure of bespoke data visualisation dashboards continues to grow. Tailored to specific requirements, these solutions deliver customization, flexibility, security, and creative data storytelling. While off-the-shelf tools have their merits, bespoke dashboards empower organisations to unleash the true potential of their data, paving the way for a new era of data visualisation excellence.

The rise of custom data visualisation dashboards

Animated data visualisations (data vids) possess a transformative ability to unlock deeper comprehension and understanding. 

With their power to visually excite and showcase temporal trends, highlight hidden patterns and deliver narrative succinctly with minimised user efforts, animation provides not only an enhanced lens through which viewers can grasp intricate research by also a means to grab attention. By animating data, we can effectively guide audiences, leading them on a captivating journey of discovery, and shedding light on the most salient insights.

Engaging and informing: How animated data visualisations revolutionise the presentation of critical research

The sharing of knowledge and insights is a hugely important currency these days with organisations using it to build authority, raise awareness, inform and influence to bring about change. Audiences for such research are often time poor, with many competing priorities, which drives the need to quickly captivate and engage your audience by distilling complex findings into easily digestible formats.

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The impact and dissemination potential of animated data visualisations are profound. With the world of proliferated digital channels and social media platforms serving as fertile ground for the exchange of ideas, these animated creations are infinitely compatible and shareable, helping to ignite conversations and spark interest across a diverse spectrum of individuals. Policymakers, journalists, and the general public can all be reached through the visual allure and storytelling nature of animated data visualisations, ensuring that the research resonates far beyond academic circles and into the public domain.

In conclusion, animated data visualisations represent a cornerstone in research communication. SOAK’s creative data visualisation and animation skills are able to unlock complex findings that help our clients inspire their audiences.

The moving power of animation

Some interesting facts about her life:

<ul><li>Ada Lovelace, born Augusta Ada Byron on December 10, 1815, was the only legitimate child of the famous poet Lord Bryon. He died when Ada was just eight. She never knew him</li><li>Lady Byron did not want Ada to follow in her father&#39;s footsteps, and being an accomplished mathematician herself, she ensured that from age four, Ada was tutored in mathematics and science</li><li>Aged just 12, Ada conceptualised a flying machine</li><li>Ada became the protégé of the inventor and mathematician Charles Babbage, working with him on his Difference and Analytical Engines</li><li>In 1835, Ada married William King, who later became the Earl of Lovelace, making her the Countess of Lovelace</li><li>She wrote the first published computer program</li><li>Ada was a compulsive gambler and once lost £3,200 (quite a sum in the 1840s) by betting on the wrong horse at the Epsom Derby</li><li>Charles Dickens read from one of his novels to Ada on her deathbed (She passed away from uterine cancer on November 27, 1852)</li><li>In homage to Lovelace, &#39;Ada&#39; is the native currency of the Cardano blockchain.</li></ul>

Ada Lovelace Day is an international celebration of the achievements of women in science, technology, engineering and maths.

Born two centuries ago, Ada Lovelace was a pioneer of computing science. A true visionary, she recognised for the first time that computers had the potential to do much more than simple calculations.

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Unfortunately, Babbage never received enough funding to complete the Analytical Engine, and Lovelace&#39;s notes were consigned to history. Thankfully, in the 1950s, her notes were republished, and she started to receive recognition for her idea of a &#39;computer language&#39; and acknowledgement as the world&#39;s First Computer Programmer.

Ada Lovelace - The mother of modern computing

We also made some design and UI enhancements to the website to improve conversion and relevancy, differentiating between a new customer and a subscribed user.

After the success of working with PropertyData on establishing their new brand identity, we&#39;ve recently been working on a new campaign to increase brand awareness and drive subscriptions from prospective homebuyers and experienced property investors.

The campaign theme involved leveraging the brand and creating various abstract graphics to underpin simple, concise statements targeted at each audience segment.

Press ads in publications such as Property Week and Property Investor News, plus tube ads across the London Underground, were supported by new email templates and social ads for use across various digital channels.

Pushing the boundaries for PropertyData

The Climate Economics Index stress-tests how climate change will impact 48 countries representing 90% of the world economy by comparing their climate resilience across a range of key variables.

Using a carefully selected blend of design, data, and the latest web technologies, the interactive visualisation allows users to explore country-specific data, statistics and stories using a single fluid interface.

Swiss Re recently appointed Soak to be their global data visualisation design partner, and we are immensely proud to be working with them on a new initiative that increases awareness of the economic impacts of climate change.

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Soak are delighted to support Swiss Re. Our goal is to create innovative, data-driven tools and visualisations that provide clarity and insight, enabling us to make more informed decisions about our lives, our businesses and, in this case, the future of our planet.

Visualising the impacts of climate change

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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Human capital animation

Swiss Re

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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Closing the protection gap

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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Digital toolkit

Insurance Information Institute

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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Dynamic economics dashboard

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.