Taking my first steps into Data Visualisation

Like many, the social distancing guidance during the COVID-19 pandemic has left me with more free time around the house than usual. I've also found myself thinking about how important data can be in shaping our perceptions of the world.

The challenge I've given myself is to get started with making interactive data visualisations, in the form of a visual essay. These data-rich, beautiful, interactive stories are fast becoming the go-to method for effectively communicating the results of an investigation or experiment using large data sets (such as crime rates, climate science, electoral coverage).

The Pudding have a great repository of data visualisations and a number of how-to's that I'm surely going to need down the line!

BBC News have a fantastic set of visualisations to explain the COVID-19 pandemic that have been part of my inspiration to finally give this a go.

BBC Data Viz showing how confirmed coronavirus cases have spread up until 10th April. Source BBC News

At first, I thought about trying to visualise some data around the current coroanvirus situation, but I don't feel I would do the topic justice. I will be doing this in my own time, so I want the data to be quite personal and something that no-one else would be looking at.

I've decided to explore my own personal activity data from Google Fit. I've decided to only use the data collected automatically by my phone and ignore any data fields that allow manual input, as I know I am very patchy when it comes to keeping score of workouts and activities where I don't have my phone with me. It'll be interesting to explore what data my phone is collecting about me, to see how that data matches up with my own perceptions and if I can learn anything from this when we're finally allowed to get back out into the outdoors!

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