Exploring data and prototyping visualisations with Observable

This month we'll be learning how to use Observable, a tool for exploring, analysing and visualising data.

Observable is an online service that works particularly well as a digital notebook for exploratory data analysis as well as prototyping visualisations. Partially this is because in Observable code is reactive, which means that when you update one thing other things that rely on it also automatically update -- just like in Excel, and unlike most other coding environments. Observable is used by organisations including the Economist, the LA Times, and Civio.

We'll be learning how to write code for Observable, which uses a modified form of Javascript. We'll then use it to get some data from the web using an API, and produce a simple data visualisation.

All of our events are suitable for beginners, and no programming experience is required. Bring a laptop along as this a practical, hands-on workshop. Before you arrive please also sign up for a Observable account. It's free.

Before the event, check out the shared doc we'll be using, and sign up for a Dropbox account if you don't already have one so you can edit it. Then please add links to the show and tell section! These can be great data stories you've seen, new tools, jobs you’re hiring for, announcements -- anything others might be interested in. We'll check out what everyone has shared at the start of the event.

Note this will be our first event at a new venue: Flourish's headquarters on Hoxton Square.

Schedule
7:00 🚪 Doors open
7:30 🗣 Show and tell
7:40 💻 Tutorial
9:00 🍺 Drinks at the Bricklayer's Arms