The past year of off-site telework allowed Preservation Research and Testing Division (PRTD) staff to do a deep dive into serious considerations about data analytics and data visualizations. Much of this work related to utilizing the tools we had available, linking the visualizations
to data analytics for cultural heritage and heritage science research projects, with a strong focus on how best to adapt visualizations for specific audiences, ranging from scientific colleagues, conservation and collection care, interested public, and personnel wanting to use the information
for a range of decision-making functions. Some of the factors we assessed related to the amount of information or data presented, whether to present minimal data with hover-over functionality to encourage exploration or allow different views for different audiences, what was “too much”
data, what programs people were familiar with and the types of presentations, graphs, scatterplots, bar-charts, interactives etc. Significant discussions and reworking of visualizations answered some questions, while exposing many more.