How do data visualization professionals spend their time?

This phase involves gathering and organizing data from various sources and cleaning it to ensure its accuracy and reliability. Data preparation may also include transforming data into a format that can be easily analyzed and visualized.

Our survey of data visualization professionals found that 17% reported never engaging in data preparation, which can raise concerns about the quality and accuracy of their visualizations. However, 42% do so occasionally, and 22% dedicate a moderate amount of time, indicating that most professionals recognize the importance of data preparation.

In this phase, data is analyzed to identify patterns, trends, and insights that can be used to inform the visualization design. This may involve using statistical techniques or machine learning algorithms to extract insights from the data.

It's striking that 59% of respondents either never engage in data analysis or do so only occasionally, given that data analysis is a critical task in generating insights through data visualization. This could indicate a lack of skills or awareness of the importance of data analysis, or suggest that some professionals are relying on analysis done by others. Alternatively, it could indicate a focus on data visualization as a means of reporting or exploring data, rather than uncovering insights.

Here, ideas for the visualization design are generated, and a storyboard is created to outline the main components of the visualization, such as the data types, visualization types, and narrative structure.

The results suggest that ideating and storyboarding may be seen as less critical than other tasks by most professionals related to data visualization projects. In fact, 74% of respondents reported never doing it or doing it for less than 5 hours per week, which is the highest percentage among all tasks.

This phase involves creating and refining the visualization based on the storyboard, and may involve designing and developing interactive features that allow users to explore the data and gain insights.

Producing visualizations is a critical task for most professionals in the field, with a majority dedicating substantial time to it. However, almost half of the respondents reported never doing it or doing it for less than 5 hours per week. On the other hand, only 7% of respondents focus mostly on producing visualizations, suggesting that few professionals are completely dedicated to visualizing data.

Throughout the project, it's important to manage tasks and teams to ensure that the project is on track and meets the objectives. This may involve coordinating tasks between team members, monitoring progress, and adjusting the project plan as needed to ensure successful completion.

Managing tasks and teams, along with ideating and storyboarding, is a task to which data visualization professionals dedicate less time, with over 7 out of 10 respondents reporting never doing it or doing it for less than 5 hours per week. While the results for ideating and storyboarding were striking, in the case of managing tasks and teams, it's possible that this task may be performed by others or that data visualization professionals tend to work independently or in small teams.