The short answer is “yes”.

Here’s the biological reason why: Our nervous system works by recognizing and amplifying differences. We focus on the dynamic rather than the static. It isn’t so much that watching grass grow is boring, it’s that the threats in our environment move quickly, so we’re built to respond.

Because our nervous systems work like this, there ought to be some very compelling mechanisms for presenting data, using animation. It turns out that there are. If you have 10 minutes to spare, you can see some of them in action in the video of a presentation given in 2006 by Hans Rosling, which debunks some third-world myths. If you have much less time, just click here. Either link should convince you of the virtues of animated data presentation.

The software Rosling uses is Trendalyzer, which was developed by his Gapminder Foundation. Trendalyzer was acquired by Google in April of last year, although I’m not sure why. Marissa Mayer, Google’s VP Search Products & User Experience, announced the acquisition in her blog, mentioning that it would be used for “building flexibility into search, email, and other Google products” which means whatever it means. But clearly it doesn’t mean that Google intends to dash headlong into the BI market.

It would be a shame if Trendalyzer were to vanish without trace into the GooglePlex, but not a tragedy. As it happens, SAS has some similar capabilities in its JMP software, as I learned to my considerable surprise at a briefing yesterday.

Who knew?

In fact, Dr Fern Halper and I requested a further briefing to explore JMP’s data presentation capabilities in greater detail, because it has a variety of capabilities. (If you want to read Fern’s thoughts on this, click here). I’ll report back on that, but in the mean time, if you’re looking for animated data presentation it’s worth your while having a look at JMP.