Everyday Data Visualization

3 It’s all about the data

This chapter covers

• Where and how to acquire data
• Understanding data at a fundamental level
• Describing data values (discrete vs. continuous, sequential vs. categorical)
• Storing data in rows and columns
• Nesting data in key-value pairs

In chapter 2, we learned all about some basic design principles and concepts we’ll be using throughout this book, but this chapter is all about the data. To ensure everyone has the same basic understanding of data fundamentals, we’ll first touch on where you might find data out in the wild. Next, we’ll answer the question “What is data?” and talk about several basic data types. After that, we’ll learn how to describe the values of data and whether they are discrete or continuous and sequential ...