Data Visualization Curriculum

A data visualization curriculum of interactive notebooks, using Vega-Lite and Altair. This repository contains a series of Python-based Jupyter notebooks, a corresponding set of JavaScript notebooks are available online on Observable.

Curriculum

Table of Contents

1. Introduction to Vega-Lite / Altair
   Jupyter Notebook | Open in Colab | Open in Observable

2. Data Types, Graphical Marks, and Visual Encoding Channels
   Jupyter Notebook | Open in Colab | Open in Observable

3. Data Transformation
   Jupyter Notebook | Open in Colab | Open in Observable

4. Scales, Axes, and Legends
   Jupyter Notebook | Open in Colab | Open in Observable

5. Multi-View Composition
   Jupyter Notebook | Open in Colab | Open in Observable

6. Interaction
   Jupyter Notebook | Open in Colab | Open in Observable

7. Cartographic Visualization
   Jupyter Notebook | Open in Colab | Open in Observable

Support

• Altair Debugging Guide
  Jupyter Notebook | Open in Colab

Getting Started

The visualization curriculum can be used either online or on your local computer.

• To read JavaScript notebooks online using Observable, click the "Observable" links above.
• To read Python notebooks online using Colab, click the "Colab" links above.
• To read Python notebooks locally, follow the instructions below.

Local Installation

1. Install Altair and a notebook environment. The notebooks are written for Altair v3.2 or later.
2. Copy the curriculum repository to your local filesystem using git clone https://github.com/uwdata/visualization-curriculum.git.
3. Open the notebooks in your local notebook environment. For example, if you have JupyterLab installed (v1.0 or higher is required), run jupyter lab within the directory containing the notebooks.

Depending on your programming environment, you may need to specify a particular renderer for Altair.

• If you are using JupyterLab, Google Colab, or nteract you should not need to do anything — the correct renderer will be enabled by default.
• If you are using Jupyter Notebook, you need to enable the notebook renderer by invoking the following code: alt.renderers.enable('notebook').

Credits

Developed at the University of Washington by Jeffrey Heer, Dominik Moritz, Jake VanderPlas, and Brock Craft. Thanks to the UW Interactive Data Lab and Arvind Satyanarayan for their valuable input and feedback! Thanks also to the students of UW CSE512 Spring 2019, the first group to use these notebooks within an integrated course curriculum.