Ask HN: Data visualization consultant

I had previously contracted for Infinera working on their NMS suite. My contribution was a PoC running on D3 and Angular, using Semantic Topology that allows users to navigate any node or link in their network with zero clicks (scrolling and panning gets them anywhere à la Google Maps).

The hardest, most time-consuming part was prototyping because the tools out there (Framer, Principle, Quartz Composer, Adobe XD etc) are all optimized to work with lists and grids, not visualisations. I ended up creating three fully-functional prototypes in HTML and JS before finalizing on one. It was hard to get good feedback from the teams without live, interactive prototypes. There is also nothing like a standard library of well-designed components that can be grouped together to quickly mockup custom visualizations, like we have in Bootstrap for HTML frontends.

Another problem was performance; Angular, out-of-the-box, could not keep up with the amount of data coming through their pipes.

All in all, it was challenging and very, very fun to do. When it finally worked and people got their hands on it, it blew everyone away. If I were to do it all over again, I’d focus a lot more on explaining the challenges and setting realistic expectations. Custom visualisations are not 5-minute WordPress installs.

The work is under NDA but if you feel the need to discuss anything, my email is in my profile.

Some people I follow on twitter who are actively involved in DataVis:

Lisa Charlotte Rost (@lisacrost), Micah Stubbs (@micahstubbs), Jim Vallandingham (@vlandham), Nicky Case (@ncasenmare), Nadieh Bremer (@NadiehBremer)

Yes! The approach I took was to build a product that solves a broad problem (in my case geographic visualisation) and showed that to get clients who wanted something similar but tweaked for their use case. Of course they then ask 'is it possible to do this other thing' and all of a sudden you're doing data vis consulting.

As an aside, I'd suggest selling the data science too if you have the skills since data viz isn't just about showing data but figuring out how to show it to answer the relevant business questions - they go hand-in-hand and it's both a more compelling sell and adds more value to deliver the full stack solution instead of just the viz piece.

Good luck!

I've done it, usually it's people stumbling upon the visualisations I did for my own interest (from my website, Twitter, or d3's gallery) finding they'd like something close to them and contacting me directly. Maps most often.

I like it, it's like paid leisure, and the more you do it, the most likely you already have something that almost does exactly what they want and just needs a few changes.

I wouldn't know where to start looking for clients though.

I've looked at your work, you've got pretty great pieces.

If you don't mind me asking, which kind of organizations are usually interested in your work?

Hey, your email isn't showing up either. You can email me at kam[at]stratagem[dot]io

I'll send you my calendar when i get your email.