Systems, methods, and devices for interpreting manual touch gestures as input to a touch screen for manipulating computer-generated data visualizations such as column charts, bar charts, and pie charts are provided. According to embodiments of the invention, graphical user interface (GUI) data visualization objects (e.g., column charts, bar charts, pie charts, etc.) displayed on a touch screen may be manipulated by a user performing a variety of different conventional touch gestures directed to the touch screen. The conventional touch gestures are applied in new ways to the data visualization objects of the GUI to enable rich, intuitive, and meaningful manipulation of computer-generated data visualizations.