Tools of the Trade

The main tools we are using in this project are Observable Notebook with D3 and Vega-Lite. The dataset we are curating is stored in excel on googledocs.

Obsrvable notebook is an online collaborative realtime JavaScript environment, where developers and analysts can load data, build widgets, and play with various displays to gain insight. The notebooks are composed of cells, that contain either expressions, or blocks of code. These cells can be run out of order, so the environment is highly reactive. In cells, users can do things like declare variables, import data and create objects with it, and create functions. You can learn more about observable here.

D3 is a JavaScript librabry that allows document manipulation based on data input. It works with HTML, CSS, and SVG, and DOM manipulation. D3 is great for widget elements that have interaction and animation. You can learn more about D3 here.

Vega-Lite is a format for working on visualization designs. Vega-Lite uses JSON, and generates views with HTML5 Canvas or SVG. Learn more about Vega-Lite here.

We are able to import our data into Observable directly from googledocs using a link, and have been editing the data online in googledocs.

In order to learn about these tools, I’ve been using a combination of reading documentation, watching youtube tutorials, watching lessons that John has recorded for his previous classes, 1:1 meetings with John, and 1:1 meetings with other research students who share their learnings.