choose-tool

Choose the Right Visualisation Tool

Use this when the user wants a visualisation and hasn't named a library. The goal is to start from the purpose-organised inventory (skills/tool-inventory) so the pick is grounded, rather than defaulting to whatever first comes to mind.

The inventory is a head start, not a cage — if nothing listed fits, go outside it and say why.

Decision axes

Ask (or infer) along these axes before picking:

1. Presentation purpose
   • Static figure for a report/PDF/print
   • Embedded chart on a web page / blog
   • Interactive dashboard
   • Animated / narrative data storytelling
   • Scientific / exploratory analysis
2. Data shape
   • Tabular (rows × columns)
   • Time-series / financial
   • Network / graph
   • Gridded / geospatial raster (netCDF, climate)
   • Geospatial points / globe
3. Runtime the user works in
   • Python pipeline
   • JS / web front-end (vanilla, React, general)
   • Flutter
   • Desktop app (no code)
4. Interactivity required
   • None (export PNG/SVG)
   • Hover / tooltip
   • Full linked-brushing dashboard
   • Animated transitions between states
5. Audience
   • Technical / analyst — exploration
   • General — storytelling, clarity-first

Quick mapping (defaults)

Need	Pick
Publication-quality static figure, Python	Matplotlib
Interactive Python dashboard	Plotly Dash or Bokeh
Lightweight web chart, minimal deps	Chartist or Chart.js
Dashboard-class web charts with many types	Apache ECharts
Bespoke / custom visual, web	D3
React-native chart primitives	visx
Financial / time-series, web	Lightweight Charts
Flutter app chart	fl_chart
Animated storytelling transitions	Vizzu
Narrative / story-driven charts	VChart
Network / graph exploration	Constellation
Multi-dim interactive exploration (desktop)	DataWarrior
Earth-science gridded data	Iris
Quant finance research	QuantInvestStrats
3D globe	react-globe.gl

Protocol

1. Read skills/tool-inventory for the canonical list and repo links.
2. If the user's need maps cleanly to the table above, propose that tool and state why in one sentence.
3. If two inventory tools fit, present both with a one-line tradeoff and ask.
4. If nothing in the inventory genuinely fits, propose a non-inventory tool and say so explicitly with the reason.
5. Once chosen, hand off to skills/setup-environment if the user needs the toolchain stood up, or proceed to implementation.