Membership

Anyone can make a chart. Load a dataset into some spreadsheet software, and there you go.

But not everyone can make great charts that are readable, usable, and beautiful. How do you get from boring defaults to insightful data graphics? What are the steps?

You could search the web for sparse code snippets and inconsistent visualization advice, but who has the time and energy for that?

I’ve made the process of advancing past defaults easier for you with a comprehensive collection of visualization tutorials, courses, and guides all in one place.

The Benefits

…the inspiration I needed to start learning to code with a view to building more sophisticated and engaging data visualisations.
Paul Campbell

Visualization in Practice

Learn with real data and concrete examples.

The best way to learn how to visualize data is to start doing it now. Make charts. Work with real data. Get expert guidance.

With membership:

• Make great charts right away.
• Look at real data.
• Gain technical know-how and design skills required to visualize your data in a way that is both useful and beautiful.
• Experiment with how visual forms work.
• Learn how to negotiate between more efficient and more visually compelling chart types.
• Learn about how the charts get made instead of relying on templates.
• Download source code to apply to your own datasets.
• Support an independent site.
• Build the visualization skills that everyone with data wants. Become indispensable.

I teach a class on data visualization, and FlowingData has been a source of inspiration and provocative examples for me and my students. Nathan Yau creates discussion generating graphs, starts conversations about other noteworthy data and graphing efforts, and provides useful insights on coding and workflow.
Eric Lawrence

Make Any Chart

Go beyond defaults with step-by-step tutorials.

There are hundreds of step-by-step tutorials — with more every month — amounting to hundreds of hours of learning.

The tutorials — covering a range of basic, to advanced, to my own visualization projects — walk you through step-by-step so that you can make data graphics for reports, presentations, and analysis.

We don’t just cover the mechanics of encoding data into shapes and colors. You will also learn how to design data graphics that speak to different audiences. You’ll learn how to make any chart. You’ll learn how to pick the right chart for your data and purpose. You’ll learn the steps to get from raw data to finished graphic.

Tutorials include datasets, source code downloads, and examples to work with.

If you get stuck, there’s a section at the end of each tutorial to ask questions and see previous answers.

It’s not just how to press buttons or to copy and paste code. Instead, you learn how chart types and visual encodings work so that you can make any chart. Customize to your needs and apply in your own projects.

Even if you don’t have a specific chart in mind now, the ever-growing tutorials collection serves as a great reference.

I’m a frequent user of online classes and really value my FlowingData membership.
Michel Guillet

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In-depth Guidance

Learn the basics and then advance with the courses, at your pace.

If you don’t have a specific visualization in mind, and instead are eager to learn it all, membership provides bonus access to self-guided courses. Work with the suggested schedule or move at your own pace, with a combination of reading and practice exercises.

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The Process

Get the members-only newsletter covering the practical side of visualizing data.

Stay up-to-date with visualization tools, what’s new in the field, and learn how experts design data graphics.

It’s worthwhile to learn the principles behind visualization, but in practice, there are always tradeoffs when you design data graphics. The rules that you read in books usually work more like suggestions. The Process is a weekly newsletter for FlowingData members that looks more closely at how to apply what we know about visualization in your everyday work.

Where Your Support Goes

FlowingData is a one-person site that I started in 2007. It was a way for me to share interesting visualization and statistics with a few classmates. The site grew, and I found sponsors, but the site felt fragile. The sponsors could leave at any point, and FlowingData would die.

So I started memberships in 2012. Since 2018, FlowingData has been 100% member-supported.

Membership supports:

• FlowingData blog — a publicly available resource on visualization, statistics, and design, every weekday since 2007
• Tutorials — learning how to visualize data with a variety of tools, from a practical perspective
• Courses — detailed instruction from beginner to advanced
• The Process weekly newsletter — discussing what’s new in visualization and the design process of making great charts
• Data Underload — charts, analysis, and visual experiments exploring the everyday-ness of data

Your support as a member means FlowingData keeps the lights on, hopefully for years to come.

What Others Say

FlowingData is a never-ending source of information, inspiration and instruction in data, visualization and design and Nathan Yau’s approach to exploring these subjects is both technical and familiar, somewhat similar to a discussion of a shared obsession over beers with a friend.
Andrew Sánchez Meador

The tutorials are very helpful to move from “Oooo, cool!” to how to actually DO the cool.
Steve Thomas

…one of the finest resources on visualization…
Saurab Nair

…I wish I had time to read it all.
Zac Knaus

As a student who is just getting into the game of visualization (and plans to continue), it has been very helpful to be able to have a closer look behind the scenes.
Philip Nguyen

I think of your weekly emails as lessons that I actually take notes on every week and apply the knowledge I learn to my actual job as a data analyst… The membership fee is more than worth it for the information and education you get…
Vanessa Newton

We generate a lot of data (a large forensic pathology practice), and have found [FD membership] very useful to explain the public health and nosological problems.
Carl Schmidt

I love being a member of FlowingData because you just can’t beat Nathan’s approachable and easy-to-follow tutorials – they’ve saved me so much time. Plus, he always has his finger on the pulse of the data viz community so having access to all of his posts and the weekly newsletter is a MUST for me!”
Alli Torban

I’ve used skills from the visualizations both for internal tools at work, as well as for public facing visualizations.
Jared Wilber

 

 
 

Questions and Answers

Can I have an invoice/receipt?

A lot of people use their education credits from work to pay for membership. You’ll get an invoice and receipt via email when you sign up. If they get stuck in spam or you don’t get it for some reason, just let me know and I’ll help sort it out.
 

Can I cancel my subscription at anytime?

Yes. There is no minimum subscription length. Membership auto-renews. Cancel anytime via your profile with a few clicks, hassle-free. There are no refunds.
 

Do I need to know how to code first?

No. Some tutorials are more advanced, but they are written for various backgrounds. You can also work through the courses first, which assume minimal coding experience and can lay a foundation to build on. Ask questions any time.
 

Do I need to buy any software?

No. Most of the tutorials cover R, Python, or JavaScript, so there’s no software you need to buy. They’re free to use. There are a few tutorials that use Adobe Illustrator, but I provide open source alternatives. The only non-free solution is Microsoft Excel, but my hope for this category is that you can use software already on your computer.
 

How is this different from your books?

Data Points and Visualize This provide overviews of visualization and concepts. Tutorials and courses on FlowingData show you how to execute. The collection of tutorials and courses is also constantly growing. If you read the books (thanks!) and are ready to make all the charts, the tutorials and courses will get you there.
 

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