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2010 is The Year of Information Visualization Theory. Here's why.

With all the data that is now available, more powerful tools are needed to make more sense of it. Tableau Public provides some of the most powerful visualization tools available today, and it's free to use with public data.

Most data visualization on the web consists of static images. Typical interactive visualizations use Flash or Java, both of which have drawbacks and require plugins, don't work on mobile devices, etc. A number of recent visualization tools based on JavaScript promise to finally bring visualization to life on the web. The ways they work differ, but they all profit from recent advances in JavaScript performance across all modern browsers.

Information Visualization (InfoVis) is an exciting field to watch grow and expand into ever new areas. Last year brought some interesting developments that point towards changes in how we do and see visualization. What does 2010 hold in store? Here is a look back and some ideas where we're heading.

It has never been easier to record your daily activities. The data is all well and good, but the real value comes from visualizing it. Why visualize your mundane, boring life? Because it helps you track what you are doing, and provides motivation to get your ass to the gym.

There are many terrible charts out there, whether visually ugly and cluttered, or pretty but empty or even misleading (like this beautiful pie chart example featured on Fox News recently). Andrew Vande Moere at infosthetics is hosting a competition to find the ugliest and most useless charts.

Evaluation of visualization systems and techniques is a vital part of visualization research, but is often neglected. While there are established methods for basic perception studies, many other kinds of questions are much more difficult to answer in a controlled study. The CHI workshop BELIV (BEyond time and errors: novel evaLuation methods for Information Visualization) is the place to discuss new ideas about evaluating visualization.