Introduction to Flourish Studio

IN2039: Data Visualization for Decision Making

Alan R. Vazquez

Department of Industrial Engineering

Agenda


  1. Getting Started
  2. Loading Data
  3. Creating Stories

Getting Started

What is flourish studio?

  • A web-based tool for building interactive charts, maps, and stories.

  • Designed for accessibility: beginner-friendly, but powerful.

  • It is free!

  • https://flourish.studio/

Create your account

  1. Go to Flourish Studio.
  2. Click Sign up.




  • I recommend singing up with your Google-Tec account.


If you already have an account, simply log in.


Main page


The main page shows:

  • Projects (your visualizations)

  • Templates you can choose from

  • Team tools (ignore for now)

  • Options to Create a new visualization

Loading Data

Example

Consider the data in the file “spotify.xlsx”. This dataset contains the global daily plays of the five most popular songs on the Spotify music streaming service in 2017. Our goal is to create a line chart on the number of plays per song.

To load a dataset, we select the option Data.

We see a predefined dataset, but we replace it by clicking on Upload data.



Next, we click on Import and see that 367 rows or observations were uploaded successfuly.

Selecting data

Flourish studio successfully recognized that there is a column Data containing times, which must go in the horizontal axis.

Using the Values section we can set the columns that contain te number of plays of the songs.

Line plot

If we go back to the Preview, we see the resulting line plot.

We will give more details about this and other plots in later lectures.

Saving the plot

To save the plot we rename it as “My First Line Plot” and go click on the Flourish studio icon next to the neame to go back to the main panel.

You now see that the plot is now in your projects.

Creating Stories

What is a “Flourish Story”?


  • Flourish allows you to combine multiple visualizations into a narrative sequence called a Story.

  • A Story works like a slideshow where each slide is linked to a chart, a map, or a custom visualization.

  • This feature is perfect for telling data-driven stories, step by step, using interactive elements.

  • Think of it as creating a visual presentation directly from your charts.

You can create a story by clicking on New Story in the main panel.

  1. On the Flourish home page, click New story.
  2. A blank story canvas will open.
  3. You can start adding slides by clicking New slide.
  4. Each slide can display:
    • A chart you already created (Choose a visualization)
    • Text-only slides for transitions or explanations (Basic slide)
  5. Stories automatically save to your project workspace.



Choose visualization

If you click on choose visualization, you can add the previously created line plot to the story.

After selecting the plot, we see a new slide in our story.

Principle 1: Define the message or research question

We can add an informative title to the plot by filling end the section Add a caption here.

After you are done, assign a name to your story.

Present your story

You can present your story by clicking on the icon with two opposite arrows.

Voilà

You are now in presentation mode and can start telling your story.

Final comments


  • Flourish Studio is a powerful and beginner-friendly tool for creating interactive data visualizations without writing code.

  • It integrates seamlessly with CANVA, making it easy to embed dynamic charts into your design projects.

  • The platform supports a wide variety of visualization templates, which we will explore later.

  • Stories, templates, and data workflows help you communicate insights clearly and professionally.

Return to main page