Information visualization at 10

This fall (2004/2005) marked the 10th anniversary of the IEEE's Information Visualization Symposium's founding. At such an important milestone, the author takes the opportunity to comment on the state of the field: where we've been, where we are, and what comes next. Our challenge as a research community is to deliver on information visualization's promise. The most interesting results in an applied field such as information visualization come from helping to solve our customers and sponsors' real problems. To create the future, we need close interactions and exchanges with our customers. The Information Visualization Symposium started 10 years ago because some of us recognized a need to apply scientific visualization ideas to a new user base, in which an analyst, rather than a scientist, was the target user. The opportunity is even better today than it was then.