Preface:

Analysts of all ages use numbers to answer questions large and small. Learning how to communicate these answers clearly and concisely is an important skill. Data visualization (e.g., graphs and heat maps) can help authors explain the narrative of the analysis performed in a powerful way. Pedagogically, constructing graphs and heat maps can help students get their hands on the data and make the meaning of the numbers more concrete. This course offered an introduction to basic design principles in data visualization through a very hands-on approach. Using Google Sheets as our primary interface, we walked through the nuts-and-bolts of finding, downloading, and importing data sets of interest. The course discussed rules of thumb for selecting the proper types of graphs to explain relationships, and how to make them in the class. The course also made use of free data visualization websites for more complicated tasks such as histograms and heat maps. The focus of the course was on describing data and relationships visually and not on statistics.