My datavis journey.

1. “Where There’s Smoke,
there must be fire.”
and other inspiring data visualization insights from
“The Adventures of Harold and the Purple Crayon”
Written by Crockett Johnson

2. Design, statistics, analysis, narratives,
and mediums (tools) are all essential
parts of creating good data
visualizations. It’s important to become
familiar with each part of the whole,
but where do you begin? It can seem
overwhelming.
Let me tell you my story:
Here’s a look at just a part of my book
collection* since I started digging into
data visualization over a year ago.
It can seem overwhelming.
*Not pictured are all of my Python and
other basic learning how to program
books on Kindle.
*Also not pictured: All the data
visualization Twitter accounts I follow,
time spent at community workshops,
meetups, in person classes, and online
classes.

3. So today, in commemoration of my
first year (plus a few months) into
this learning journey, I am taking
you with me, back to the simple
basics with an old friend, Harold.
You remember Harold from “The
Adventures of Harold and the
Purple Crayon” by Crockett Johnson.

4. Remember the first time you learned about data visualization? Boom. Easy concept to understand.
A bar graph. A pie chart. Excel. What’s there to know beyond that? You said to yourself, “What’s
there to be afraid of? I think I’ll walk down this road and check it out.”
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Category 1 Category 2 Category 3 Category 4
This is a Simple and Easy to Understand
Bar Graph
Series 1 Series 2 Series 3

5. Those were the good old days. It was
like you were Harold and there was just
this one purple crayon … but then you
learned what you could do with the
purple crayon and just using Excel didn’t
seem so great anymore.
You knew you needed to learn more,
but where could you turn?
You kept hearing strange new
terminology and people telling you
about wonderful new worlds they’ve
discovered using Python, R, D3. What
did it all mean? Suddenly, this little
evening walk seemed different.

6. This new and simple concept
suddenly seemed daunting and
intimidating … and maybe even a bit
frightening.
You had so much to learn.

7. You decided to pick a tool and stay
on a clear path.
So do you choose Tableau or
Qlikview or PowerBI or … ?

8. And then there were these rules
you were supposed to just
intuitively know and abide by, a/k/a
“The Rules/Laws of Data
Visualization”, that all of the datavis
scholars already knew instinctively:
 Pie charts are considered low
brow and not used anymore.
 Don’t cut a y axis short.
 Nobody uses 3D or animation,
unless … (complex explanation of
the one or two exceptions
follow).

9. But you didn’t know, and you used
them in a presentation … and then
someone brought it to your
attention.
And once you realized what you had
done, you felt like others knew and
were laughing at your efforts. You
felt embarrassed and inadequate
and wanted to just … disappear …

10. … but even though you knew you were
over your head, you wanted to keep
going.

11. You decided to hang in there and
not disappear. You found nice
people to help you along the way …

12. … and you stuck with it and
continued on your adventure.

13. And along the way you learned
things like “correlation doesn’t
always imply causation”.
So that somebody who said,
“Where there’s smoke there must be
fire” wasn’t necessarily correct.
You learned it was important to
study the data, respect the data,
and to not draw conclusions until
you’re absolutely sure.

14. You also discovered “Big Data”. Too-
big-for-Excel-Big-Kind-a-Data. Then
you learned there was something
called Python that would help with
that. This world was getting bigger
by the moment and more and more
interesting.

15. You started creating again and you were so excited to share your creations with others … your co-
workers, your boss, your peers, your family, your pets! Everyone will love it!

16. It was all getting so exciting … but
still seemed overwhelming. The
new vocabulary. Those words you
were still afraid to speak: Was it
pronounced choropleth or
chloropeth?
The new cool new tools that you
were learning how to use: Tableau,
Qlikview, PowerBI, Python, R, Adobe
Illustrator, Advanced Excel formulas
and beyond. The universe was
getting bigger and bigger.

17. And like Harold, you started
wondering about all the things in
the world … all the data sources you
could explore and what conclusions
you could draw from studying them.
But once you explored the data, you
still had questions and no real
answers. You felt like you were in
the middle of a desert again.

18. But like Harold, you didn’t give up,
you persevered and found the
answers you needed.
Finding answers felt like discovering
a pool of water near a palm tree in
the desert after a long walk.

19. And we discovered like Harold did,
that something we first see as a
moon, may instead be a flying
saucer.

20. But then we realize how much we
don’t know, and like Harold, we run
away for a while. Sometimes
feeling stuck, but most of the time
spending time learning more about
our newfound passion.

21. And we get so lost in the data, we
start to wonder what planet we are
on.
Sometimes it feels like Mars. And
then we might feel lonely and have
a great need for company, because
we’ve come all this way and hope to
chat about our new discoveries.
So we join classes, meetup groups,
workshops. And there we find the
friendly faces. Our peers. Our
mentors.

22. And like Harold, we creep back and
try again. Sometimes running as fast
as we can and failing.
It seems like falling in the dark.
And then things become clear and
bright again and we aren’t so
bothered by all of the big
mountains and intimidating flying
saucers.

23. Because those flying saucers that
seemed so scary, sometimes just
turn out to be oatmeal bowls.

24. We breathe a sigh of relief knowing
that we have proven to ourselves
that we can do it. One step at a
time. And so we keep at it … until
we get hungry … or tired, and then
it’s time to take a break and start all
over again the next day.