Building Responsive Data Visualization for the Web

Chapter 09 Asset Dependence

This chapter is the last piece of radically new information presented in this book before you start merging everything you’ve learned in the preceding chapters into a working whole. In this chapter, you are going to look at how JavaScript’s D3 library works, and learn how to react not to client feature changes, but rather to changes in the data backing your visualizations.

Dynamic Data

This is your first big foray into data-driven design. In the previous chapter, you were working toward building for the smallest screen (no screen), and then creating a basic experience. That experience has already begun to meet the classic definition of responsive design—that is, responding to the client’s browser.

However, having read and absorbed all the responsive data visualization tenets, you also know that ensuring client responsiveness is only half of your job when it comes to building data visualization. The other half is responding to your data set.

You are already closer to mastering this than you might think. After all, you’ve learned about building an API that is dynamic enough to spit out exactly the level of granularity you want. You know how to react to data changes by redrawing your chart (a refresher and much more on that in a few pages). You have a grasp of grouping data. And in the previous chapter, you worked through an example of data layering.

Pretty good…but now it’s time to get serious.

Dipping Your Toe In

In this section you’ll ...