top of page
Search

Google Data Analytics Professional Certificate | 6 Share Data Through the Art of Visualisation

Writer: goldenstateservicesj
goldenstateservicesj
Oct 25, 2023
4 min read

tl:dr

  • I’m currently completing the Google Data Analytics Professional Certificate in an effort to sidestep careers to become a Data Analyst

  • I just wanted to reflect on some specific things that surprised me, made me think or something I can relate back to volleyball analysis.  They include:

    • David McCandless has inspired data visualisations

    • It should take 5 seconds for the audience to understand the data visualisation and another 5 seconds to understand the point it is trying to make

    • Knowing there’s a decision tree to know which graphs to use

    • I got to use Tableau

  • I will take a mini-break to do three mini-projects to reinforce some of the learning from the courses

Reflecting on Course 5 | Share Data Through the Art of Visualisation

I am currently completing the Google Data Analytics Professional Certificate in an effort to sidestep careers and become a Data Analyst.  It has eight courses and I wanted to reflect on each before moving on to the next course.  See the links below as I update them.

This blog post isn’t a full recap of the course.  I just wanted to reflect on specific things that surprised me, made me think or something I can relate back to volleyball analysis.

David McCandless Has Inspired Data Visualisations

The course talked about David McCandless at various stages on the course.  They showed what makes a good visualisation as a visualisation (see below).  There’s no data in it but it looked beautiful and it clearly shows that you need four elements (information, story, goal, visual form) to make a successful visualisation and if you’re missing one, you get something else.  

I watched his Ted Talk (see link) and it was super interesting.  It was there that I also found out that although I have never heard of him, I have seen one of his data visualisation.  He created the Billion Dollar O Gram, which was a way to show the scale of reported figures in the news (see below for an updated example).  I have that saved somewhere in my files.  

5 Second Rule

The 5-second rule was another interesting thing to learn.  It’s the idea that the audience should know exactly what they are looking at within the first five seconds and the five seconds after that, they should understand the conclusion your visualisation is making.  It really means the data visualisation (data vis) should be clear and easy to follow.  I do sometimes feel like I should try and fit in as much data as I can into a single graph, i.e. I don’t need to fit everything into one chart.  

Decision Tree For Graphs Used

I think I do struggle with knowing what graph to use because it does feel like I always use a bar/ column chart.  I learnt about the different types of charts and how they are best used.  I also learned that you can use a decision tree to find the ideal chart to use (see below).  I found that data-to-viz gave a more comprehensive decision tree of what chart to use and the different types of charts you can use.

Learning Tableau

I finally got to learn how to use Tableau in Week 2 of the course.  I only got a taste of it and I’m sure there’s so much more to learn.  What I did certainly did not look anything like the ones shown on Tableau’s Viz of the Day (see link).

Practicing Presenting

A part of the data analyst’s job is to present your findings to an audience (stakeholders etc) so a good chunk of the course was about presenting skills.  They gave ways to structure your presentation and tips to make it good.  I definitely need to improve my presentation skills.  

Final Thoughts

I really liked this course.  It got me inspired with charts I could use, dashboards I can create and data visualisation presentations I can do.  Although I want to keep going and jump on the next course, I feel like I should take a short break to do some mini-projects to reinforce some of the things I learned.  I already feel like I’ve forgotten how to use Tableau and SQL before that.  I also need some practice in presenting.  So the three mini-projects I had in mind to improve these skills are as follows: 

  1. Present on the subject of critical volleyball statistics via video | Practice presenting and learning Google Sheets and Google Slides (completed on 4 November 2023 – see link)

  2. Create a Tableau dashboard of Team SideOut Polonia players, 2009 to 2023 | Learn Tableau with a live project (completed on 5 November 2023 – see link)

  3. Use SQL to do analysis on a public dataset of London Bike Rides and report via blog post, video presentation or Tableau dashboard | Learn to use SQL and practice presenting/ learn Tableau (completed on 21 November 2023 – see link)

The other reason for the short break at this point is the next course is about learning to use R (another program) and I don’t want to learn R when I don’t really know how to use Tableau or SQL.  There are also Google Sheets and Google Slides that I’m not totally familiar with.  Although I hate to waste money (I’m paying for the course on a monthly basis so the quicker I finish the course, the cheaper it will be), I do feel it’s important to do for my development.  

Charting My Pages of Notes

Since this is a data analytics course, I thought I should chart something.  I went with the number of pages of notes I typed up.  It’s a proxy indication of things I didn’t know.  

 
 
 

Comments

bottom of page