We all have different backgrounds, so this talk might weigh in as snooze-worthy beginner boring, or I'm not even sure I'm in the right room. Bottom line, we're aiming for an intro talk.
Data visualization is used to tell stories - convey a multidimensional data set in a meaningful yet elegant manner.
- Journalism: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2013/05/25/sunday-review/corporate-taxes.html?_r=0
- Rent vs. Buy tool: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/upshot/buy-rent-calculator.html
- Who's attacking who? (or is that 'whom'?): http://map.norsecorp.com/#/
- Just, yes: https://d3js.org/
- fun with fabric: http://bl.ocks.org/mbostock/1b64ec067fcfc51e7471d944f51f1611
- use the force (in the middle of one of M. Bostock's talk): https://mbostock.github.io/d3/talk/20110921/#1
- https://bl.ocks.org/mbostock/4062045
D3 uses JavaScript, which can select elements of the page (or the DOM, Document Object Model), using CSS, and manipulate them in a way similar to JQuery... all of which are things we are purposefully not going to address for this talk (JavaScript, well, minimal, JQuery, CSS, and the DOM). Our goal is to get a working, at a most basic level bar chart for all of you.
D3 is a JavaScript library - or a set of tools written in JavaScript
What if I want to start learning right now?
- handy place to start: http://alignedleft.com/tutorials/d3
- let's make a map tutorial: https://bost.ocks.org/mike/map/
And back down to Earth. Crawling before we take an Evel Knievel-style rocket over the Grand Canyon:
tutorial here: https://bost.ocks.org/mike/bar/ working example (to play with)