The Challenge
The amount of information is growing faster than our capabilities to analyze it. Business processes are continuously automated and every organization is collecting and storing an increasing amount of data. These big data warehouses are connected into networks and coagulate into a thick and impenetrable jungle of information.There are a lot of companies that offer services and products in the area of databases, process automation and networking. The problem of gathering, storing and managing vast amounts of data is solved. Data quality and consistency are still an issue but this is under control and improving quickly.
On the other hand, the methods and the technology to keep an overview of this flood of data, to put it in context, and turn the resulting information into useful knowledge are still few and far. This distilled knowledge however is what will give a competitive advantage to companies trying to stay afloat in the emerging knowledge economy.
The tools that do exist are linear and machine-centered, and force people to formalize their thoughts and adapt their way of working to the rigidity of machines. It is in this gap that we see our opportunity to make a difference and be successful.
Our Vision
What is needed to address the formidable challenges posed by the formidable challenges described above, are tools that facilitate the analysis, exploration, communication, and sharing of large or complex amounts of information by humans. What is needed are tools that fit the fluid way in which we think and work and that are intuitive to use.Our highly interactive visualization systems play this role. It is our intention to build tools that make use of the human perceptual system, that embed details in a global frame of reference, and encourage the exploration of unknown relationships and the testing of new hypotheses.
Our user-centered approach makes these systems understandable, predictable, controllable, and fun to use.