Why This Book?

The goal of this book-in-progress is to help non-specialists create interactive charts, maps, and simple web apps to tell stories about data on the open web, with free and user-friendly tools, tutorials, and templates for Google Fusion Tables, Tableau Public, Socrata, and GitHub Pages.

Why? As non-profit organizations and government agencies become more deeply immersed in data, they often lack staff and resources to transform numerical tables into meaningful graphics and stories. This open-access digital book will serve as a community catalyst to connect local groups with appropriate and freely-accessible data visualization tools for creating interactive charts and maps on the public web. Explore our examples, follow our tutorials, and meet up with others who seek to share data-driven stories on the web.