During this semester, one of the main skills that I learned is how to explore and visualize data in Tableau. I am now comfortable with creating almost all basic charts in Tableau (still a little unsure about pie charts!), and I can create interactive dashboards in the program as well.

There were plenty of problems that I encountered in Tableau, especially at first as I was completely unfamiliar with the program. To get past these, I downloaded and recreated workbooks from Communicating Data with Tableau to understand how other people work with the program. I learned a lot of Tableau’s features this way. Some of the problems still confuse me, like calculating weighted averages and importing spatial files, but I know that I will figure these out when I work more in the program in the future.

My remake of an original workbook about NHL players (right) from Communicating with Tableau. This exercise helped me understand how scatterplots can be used to show correlation between variables.

My remake of an original workbook about NHL players (right) from Communicating with Tableau. This exercise helped me understand how scatterplots can be used to show correlation between variables.

https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/secure.notion-static.com/29fc1569-ccad-4a8a-a998-f13573b87c72/Screen_Shot_2020-03-16_at_3.34.04_PM.png

At the beginning of this semester, I was a bit intimidated by large spreadsheets and interactive visualizations. But by working with real datasets and hand-sketching graphs and dashboards I learned more about how data helps tell stories, especially to audiences who might be unfamiliar with particular topics. Also, I was surprised by how many non-number-related skills I exercised as I worked through projects. For example, I researched in-depth about specific topics, wrote and edited descriptions for visualizations, analyzed and cleaned up data in spreadsheets, and created large-format designs by using graphic design hierarchy and color theories. I have learned that at its core, data represents the world that we all live in, and it is one of the best tools to use for storytelling. And by working with data about people in struggling situations, I now know that I am personally more drawn to socially conscious design work.

For one week, I kept track of my own habits and created a handmade data visualization of them. This exercise, inspired by Georgia Liupi, helped me understand that I do not need to jump right onto the computer in order to visualize data; simple drawings can be successful on their own.

For one week, I kept track of my own habits and created a handmade data visualization of them. This exercise, inspired by Georgia Liupi, helped me understand that I do not need to jump right onto the computer in order to visualize data; simple drawings can be successful on their own.

Next: Next Steps