Data Services

Strategy, design, and development for effective data communication.

  • Data Visualization and Research Communications

Our Services

From spreadsheet to webpage, we offer a full suite of services that will bring your data to life online.

Visualization

Ensure site visitors get the most out of your data with visually appealing and easy-to-understand charts, maps, and interactives.

Websites

Provide users with the best possible experience for the task at hand via a website tailored to your data.

Strategy Audits

Prioritize improvements to your visualizations and site based on a thorough review by our content strategists and data design experts.

Management

Take control of your data. Automate dataset processing, handle data updates on your own, switch between chart types, and configure chart displays from your website’s CMS.

Style Guides

Establish site-wide visualization styles that reflect your brand and can be referenced by developers, designers, and site editors.

User Testing

Gain greater insights into the needs of your users. We can perform user testing for visualizations, interactives, and data-focused websites.

Preparation

Streamline your data publishing process. We can provide guidance on a data format that will seamlessly drive your visualizations or microsite and optionally perform the processing for you.

APIs

Drive your data visualizations and data-focused websites with a performant data API.

Our Approach

Successful data visualization and data-focused websites require more than just making a chart or laying out a website. We work iteratively with you to:

1. Identify objectives. We work together to establish what users will accomplish with your data displays. What do you need to communicate? What knowledge or takeaways do you want users to gain? What jobs do your users need to accomplish using your interactives and tools?

2. Get to know your data. You help us to gain a domain understanding of your data so we can effectively design solutions that will meet your users’ needs.

3. Create a concept. Your feedback will help us iterate on sketches and wireframes that outline the functionality of your visualization or website.

4. Design. We’ll apply best-in-class design to provide your users with an elegant experience.

5. Build. Our developers get to work bringing your project to life online.

Case Study: Science & Engineering State Indicators

DATA-FOCUSED WEBSITE

Our redesign of the State Science & Engineering Indicators website started with an audit of their previous site design, including the visualizations, and user testing. We then moved on to a full design for everything from navigation to page styles and visualizations. The resulting website allows for easy data updates and customized visualization tools that allow users to get the most out of the data.

Visit the live site

Our Data Clients

Our journalism, non-profit and foundation clients all come to us for help communicating data to their users.

  • Development

The online edition of the New York Post faced multiple challenges in today’s demanding digital news environment. Alley relaunched the site and led one of the largest content migrations in the history of WordPress.

Century of Science

  • Design
  • Development
  • Editorial Strategy
  • User Experience

For 100 years, Science News readers have had a front row seat to the most vital scientific stories of our modern world. To celebrate their centennial, Science News turned to Alley to design and develop Century of Science, an online experience that connects new audiences with the scientific milestones and themes that fascinated and astounded readers throughout the 20th century.

  • Data Visualization and Research Communications
  • Design
  • Development
  • Discovery
  • User Experience

Relying on user research from multiple audiences, Alley built a new home for the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Science and Engineering State Indicators. The new site allows policymakers and researchers to more easily access the data they need in the form that they want, whether that is making visual comparisons of neighboring states or downloading CSV files.