Flourish is a web-based application that gives users a variety of ways to create engaging and interactive data visualizations. It requires no knowledge of coding and provides over 20 templates as starting points. For those who are coders, users can design their own templates. In addition to single visualizations, Flourish has a feature called Stories, in which different graphics can be presented in a sequence.
Simply upload data into the provided table and customize the visualization. It is simple to switch between several different visual formats once data is entered with the click of the mouse. Additional components that can be customized include pop-up information, colors, headers and footers, layout, and more.
Accounts & Pricing
An account is not required to view shared visualization, however, one is required to create a visualization. Users are able to create an account with either email or they can use single sign-on with Google.
Unlimited visualizations can be created with a free account, but they will be public. Additionally, users can share or embed projects and create stories with a free account. Upgraded accounts are available and offer additional features and support including the ability to make projects private. Personal accounts are available for $69/month or $660/year ($55/month if paid up front). Business accounts are also available from $4000/year and offer access for multiple users on a team.
Mobile App Availability & Website
A mobile app is not available for Flourish, but the website is mobile and tablet friendly. Flourish can be accessed at https://flourish.studio.
Suggested Uses
K-12: Create quick check-point quizzes. Show survey results. Illustrate content using graphs, maps, or cards.
Higher Ed: Use the marker map to create a campus map. Use hierarchy illustrations to show enrollment data. Assign data-driven projects for students to create in Flourish.
Corporate/Private Sector: Create engaging, meaningful data presentations.
What can you build?
- Line, bar, and pie charts – Basic charts, single or in a grid
- Projection maps – Make data maps with region-shading and/or points
- Scatter plots – Powerful scatter plot with optional time slider, mini-charts, and tracker lines
- Hierarchy visualizations – A template for grouping data and visualizing it hierarchically
- Cards – Ideal for displaying blocks of content in a grid or carousel
- Marker maps – Marker or locator map with emoji, icons or images for places and an inset map for context
- Sankey diagrams
- Connections globe – A 3D globe for visualizing flows between cities, countries or regions
- Parliament chart – A visualization that positions dots in a semicircular shape (useful for visualizing parliament layouts)
- Table
- Upload CSV or Excel data to create a searchable, sortable table
- Chord diagram – A chord diagram template lets you visualize connections between two entities.
- Network graphs – Network graphs for visualizing connections
- Slope charts – Ideal for visualizing change between time periods
- Sports visualizations – A sports visualization to map a player’s positions on a field/court
- Elections results chart – A stacked bar chart ideal for election results (includes a coalition builder feature)
- Arc maps – Displays connections between pairs of points on a world map
- Photo sliders – A simple interactive template to compare two pictures
- Point maps – Map for displaying points, with optional time slider
- Quizzes – A quiz format containing slider and multiple-choice type questions
- Region maps – Display custom regions on a map, with optional 3D effects
- Survey results – Powerful interactive ‘dot’ visualization, good for exploring survey results and more
- VR Network
More templates are always being developed by the Flourish team and they also offer the option for developers to code their own templates. More information on creating a template can be found on the developers’ webpage.
Media you can incorporate
Since Flourish is a data-based program, most of the input will be in text format. Users can utilize emojis in the text-entry fields (a great site for discovering emojis is emojipedia.org). There are also several templates that can incorporate images such as the photo slider and cards.
An Example
I created the data visualization in the above image using the enrollment data for different programs at the institution that I work for. The format that I used to display the data was Hierarchy and it worked well for my needs. I was able to input all of my data into three columns: Curriculum, Academic Division, and Fall 2019 Student Enrollment. After entering my data, I could choose which columns would be used for “nesting” and which would be used for “sizing”.
Once all data was entered, I switched over to the preview screen that has the options to change the layout. The “treemap” layout is the image displayed at the start of this section and “circles” is displayed to the left. All formats are interactive and a viewer can zoom in by clicking on a specific section. Additional data, the number of student enrollments in this sample, can be viewed by hovering over the smallest sections.
Many options can be customized in the preview screen including items specific to the format (for Hierarchy, number of levels displayed, sort options, and what the size of the cells is based upon). Other categories include:
- Colors
- Pop-ups
- Controls
- Animations
- Number formatting
- Layout
- Header
- Footer
Flourish offers a few options for exporting, but it is important to remember that when using a free account, once it is published it will be visible publicly so it is important to not include sensitive or confidential information. With a free account, a user can share a link directly to the visualization on Flourish, generate an embed code for a website, or download an image. The downloaded image is a snapshot and is available in PNG, JPEG, and SVG formats.
Discover & Learn
Discover
Learn
The following resources will help a new user get started with creating data visualizations in Flourish.
Flourish YouTube Tutorial Playlist
Data Storytelling blog by Little Miss Data
Apps in Online & Blended Learning 