Book Image

Learning Responsive Data Visualization

By : Hanchett, Körner
Book Image

Learning Responsive Data Visualization

By: Hanchett, Körner

Overview of this book

Using D3.js and Responsive Design principles, you will not just be able to implement visualizations that look and feel awesome across all devices and screen resolutions, but you will also boost your productivity and reduce development time by making use of Bootstrap—the most popular framework for developing responsive web applications. This book teaches the basics of scalable vector graphics (SVG), D3.js, and Bootstrap while focusing on Responsive Design as well as mobile-first visualizations; the reader will start by discovering Bootstrap and how it can be used for creating responsive applications, and then implement a basic bar chart in D3.js. You will learn about loading, parsing, and filtering data in JavaScript and then dive into creating a responsive visualization by using Media Queries, responsive interactions for Mobile and Desktop devices, and transitions to bring the visualization to life. In the following chapters, we build a fully responsive interactive map to display geographic data using GeoJSON and set up integration testing with Protractor to test the application across real devices using a mobile API gateway such as AWS Device Farm. You will finish the journey by discovering the caveats of mobile-first applications and learn how to master cross-browser complications.
Table of Contents (11 chapters)
10
Index

Chapter 1. Getting Started with Responsive Design, Bootstrap, and D3.js

The best way to understand data is to visualize it and explore it using an interactive visualization. In this book, we are going to build such an interactive visualization (actually many of them) using the latest techniques and web technologies. To make the information accessible across all devices, we are going to make the visualizations responsive. However, before we can start, we need to understand what this actually means. We also want to reuse some existing frameworks to not just do a great job but also work in an efficient way.

This chapter serves as an introduction to the methods, technologies, and frameworks that we will use throughout the book, and it will help you understand why we are using them to create data visualizations and how they work together.

In this chapter you will learn the following:

  • What exactly is Responsive Design and how can it be applied to create visualizations that work across all different screen sizes and resolutions
  • What is a Media Query and how it can be used to design visualizations for various devices
  • Why and how we use Bootstrap to build the visualization on existing components
  • Why we use vector graphics, such as SVG, for the web
  • Why we use D3.js for data manipulation and graphics creation

First, you will learn about Responsive Design and how it can be used to design a visualization for various screen sizes and resolutions. Then, we will discuss the importance of some key technologies such as CSS3 (especially Media Queries) and HTML5 (especially the viewport meta tag).

In the following chapter, we will get acquainted to the popular CSS and HTML framework called Bootstrap. Don't worry if you have never heard about it; it helps us to build the application on the existing and well-tested components, such as grids and LESS Media Queries.

In the last section of this chapter, you will learn about Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) in the browser; and you will understand why and when it is great to use vector graphics for visualizations. Then, we will see a brief introduction to D3.js, which is a versatile JavaScript library for data transformations and graphics generation. At the end of this chapter, you will understand why SVG is a great choice for designing interactive responsive visualizations for the web.