Tableau’s Vizable app simplifies your complex spreadsheets by making them visualMumbai, Dec 8(AZINS) From the granular details of your monthly mobile activity to your e-commerce transition history over the last few years, we unknowingly generate tons of data over the course of our digital lives. Most often, we never really bother with this data as it’s something we don’t regularly interact with (unless something needs to be checked or verified.) But when we do need to download and study this data--the kind that often lives in rows and columns--it can, for most people, be a very daunting task.

Enter Vizable, a tablet-centric app from Tableau that does some pretty intelligent ‘heavy lifting’ with all of this data, presenting it in a lucid, visual format that aims to change the way you interact with any kind of spreadsheet.

Vizable’s mantra is simple--to put data at your fingertips. Instead of poring over numbers packed within cells, the Vizable app automatically converts a spreadsheet’s numeric data (which can be imported from iCloud, Google Drive or Dropbox) into interactive graphs and charts that are inherently interactive. Simply pinching a column zooms out to larger graphical depictions of your data, while moving your fingertips apart on a particular stack of graphs zooms in to reveal more granular data. All the while, the data is presented in an easy, consistent bar graph, with column headings and labels changing on-the-fly, relative to the view.

“It's always understanding a question even before you pose one,” says Dave Story, Tableau’s Vice President, Mobile and Strategic Growth. “It lets you operate at the speed of touch.”

This is also one of the few software we’ve seen with so much emphasis on design and user experience: smooth, intuitive transitions abound. From rearranging columns to pinch-zooming to reveal added details, every on-screen graphical component segues smoothly in a visually appealing manner. And with reason--many of the brains behind the development of the graphics engine that powers this app are technical award winners from no less than Industrial Light and Magic (the guys behind Star Wars,) along with people who have worked on animation tools use in several of Pixar’s movies.

With form also comes function--the way the transitions move actually resonates with the data itself, subtly suggesting a ‘before’ and ‘after’ state. This becomes especially apparent when you find yourself pinching the screen slowly, just to see that transition and understand how one screen is going to morph into another. Tapping a button at the top of the screen instantly toggles to another type of view centered around ‘time’, which displays the data in an altogether different way--a great way to glean insights where chronology of data is relevant.

It’s the kind of software that invokes that unmistakeable ‘aah’ effect--the more you use it the more intuitive it becomes--you discover you can tap and drag columns to rearrange them, and swipe through entire areas of an otherwise drab spreadsheet faster than ever, now that the whole experience is visual.

Over time, using this app leads to discovering interesting trends in data--the kind that would otherwise be very difficult to find by simply eyeballing a big spreadsheet.

When questioned whether Tableau was exploring other mediums of implementing this software--augmented reality and virtual reality--Story was sceptical about the practicality of this tool being translated into a VR realm: the primary reason being the challenge with creating VR content is very high. Regarding Augmented Reality, he was more confident about it being far more useful and practical. It’ll be interesting to see development on this front over time.

With our ever-increasing penchant to create more data--both intentionally (those quarterly sales reports,) and naturally (data from health band)--the real power will lay in our ability to quickly and effectively mine those nuggets of insights and revelatory trends that lay hidden within. This is where a tool like Vizable that makes light work of visualizing even complex spreadsheet data can open new possibilities for examination and discovery.

Whether you’re already a seasoned Excel user, or whether you’re simply interested in dissecting your own fitness/online buying/school data, try out this tool. Right now it’s only available for iOS, with an Android version in the pipeline.