Week 9: Data visualization lab

Summary

This week we will gain hands-on experience with some data visualization tools and create visualizations from comics-related data sets.

Weekly Learning Objectives

• create data visualizations in Excel.
• create data visualizations in Tableau.
• create data visualizations in Flourish.

Before class: Readings, resources, and tasks

• Install Microsoft Excel (see https://iuware.iu.edu/).
• Create a Flourish account.

• Create a Tableau account.

• Information Visualization Discussion and Evaluation

In class

Counting genres

Dataset

• Spreadsheet of data from the The Stephen Cooper Comic Book Collection.

Tool: Microsoft Excel

1. Open Excel file.
2. Create a new sheet and name the new sheet Counting.
3. Get genres from the Cooper Collections Stories sheet
   • Excel option
     • copy and paste GENRE - STORY column from Cooper Collections Stories sheet to Counting sheet
     • Select GENRE - STORY column in Counting sheet and run Remove Duplicates function.
   • Atom option
     • select and copy the GENRE - STORY column
     • paste into a text editor (e.g., Atom)
     • Select All with Cmd-A (MacOS) or Ctrl-A (Windows)
     • Install sort-lines package in atom
       • From within Atom: Settings -> Install -> search for “sort-lines” and click “Install”
       • Type Cmd-Shift-P (MacOS) or Ctrl-Shift-P (Windows); then type sort; then select the Sort Lines: Uniquecommand.
4. In new sheet create a column “genres” with one row for each genre:
   
   Fig. 1. Genre column.
5. Count the genres
   • In Counting sheet, next to the genres column, create a count column
   • In the first cell of the count column, enter the formula =COUNTIF('Cooper Collection Stories'!M:M,Counting!A2)
   • copy and paste this formula in the other rows
6. Add percentages
   • In Counting sheet, next to the count column, create a percentage column
   • In the first cell of the percentage column, enter the formula =B2/SUM($B$2:$B$17)
   • copy and paste this formula in the other rows
   • select the row and change the format to Percentage
7. Insert chart from the Insert toolbar.

Mapping Publishers

Dataset

• Michigan State University comics-as-data.
  • https://github.com/ktopham/comics-as-data/raw/master/comics_as_data_north_america_2020-01-20_reconciled_full.csvLinks to an external site.

Tool: Flourish.

1. Login to your Flourish account.
2. Select New Visualization
3. Under Projection map, select the US (states) option.
4. Select the Data tab.
5. Select the Points tab.
6. Select Upload data to upload the comics_as_data_north_america_2020-01-20_reconciled_full.csv file.
7. Enter the appropriate columns for Name, Longitude, and Latitude.
8. Preview your visualization.