Data visualization skills are essential for business success. If you’re looking to wow your boss with your ability to draw conclusions quickly from a data set, then we have spent the time researching the best data visualization courses that are available online. We have included both free and paid courses, that are suitable for all levels, to ensure that you can find a course best suited to you!
But first, let’s answer a very important question – what are data visualization skills, and why are they important to businesses?
Data visualization deals with the graphic representation of data. It takes the original data, that is displayed numerically, and turns it into a graphic element using lines, graphs or charts. Businesses leaders rely on data to make decisions. In order to act quickly, they don’t have time to sift through endless spreadsheets so instead they rely on data visualization. As a result, being able to visualize data is an incredibly important skill, that will put you at the top of the pecking order in advising businesses leaders.
You can learn all the data visualization skills that you will need to land yourself a decision-making position in a business through online learning. Suitable for all levels, I have spent the time researching the best data visualization tutorials out there. Each course uses different platforms so you can pick which way you would like to enhance your skills. So, if you’re looking to progress your workplace skills, there will most definitely be an online course out there for you!
1. Data Visualization with Tableau Specialization (Coursera)
- Level: Beginner
- Completion time: months at approx 3h per week
- Cost: Enroll for Free
- Certification: Yes
- Number of people who have completed the course: 94,094
- Course rating: 4.5/5 (out of 5,865 ratings)
Developed by the University of California, this course offers one of the best combinations of theory and practical training in Tableau, which is a popular visual analytics platform that allows you to transform data to solve problems.
This training program teaches you the best practices for data visualization and storytelling through 5 separate courses. To start, you will learn about the fundamentals of visualization with tableau and how to tableau interface works. Next, you will look at the essential design principles for tableau, followed by visual analytics with tableau. The final two courses then look at how to create dashboards with Tableau and you will then be asked to complete a class project where you are required to create a single-frame or multi-frame data story and share it.
By the end of the 6 months, complete beginners should now feel confident using the advanced features of Tableau to connect multiple data sources to create graphics that can be used in real world businesses.
2. Mastering Data Visualization in D3.js (Udemy)
- Level: Intermediate to Advanced
- Completion time: 6h 34m
- Cost: $79.99
- Certification: No
- Number of people who have completed the course: 20,087
- Course rating: 4.5/5 (out of 3,942 ratings)
To complete this course, you should have a good understanding of HTML, CSS and JavaScript. On top, you should know how to interact with the Document Object Model (DOM) using jQuery. If you can already do all these things, and consider yourself an intermediate computer wiz, then this course is for you!
The course will cover 3 phases. In the first phase of the course you will build up your knowledge of D3 and will be introduced to some of the most foundational topics in data visualization. You will finish this phase with the ability to write scales, handle user interactions, add legends, tooltips and much more. In phase 2, you will learn about various visualizations, such as line charts, pie charts, word clouds, tree maps, sunburst plots and much more. In the final phase, you will be shown proper file structure and will complete a number of class projects to ensure you leave this class with the incredibly powerful tools to create and visualize data.
3. Free Online Data Visualization Courses (edX)
- Level: Various
- Completion time: Various
- Cost: Free
- Certification: Yes
- Number of people who have completed the course: Various
- Course rating: Various
edX offers free Data Visualization courses and training programs in partnership with top universities and global institutions. These courses are mostly all self-paced, so that learners can take their time to complete whichever course they decide is best suited. These data visualization courses will allow learner to gain foundational skills in data visualization, learn to use various tools and software to perform data analyses and combine data with visuals in order to create impactful presentations that can help to make sound business decisions.
Some of the top data visualization courses available on edX are: a Data Science visualization by Harvard University, Visualizing Data with Python by IBM, MATLAB and Octave for Beginners by EPFL, Data Analytics and Visualizing Data with Power BI by Davidson College.
4. Data Visualization Training and Tutorials (LinkedIn Learning)
- Level: Various
- Completion time: Various
- Cost: 1 month free trial
- Certification: Yes
- Number of people who have completed the course: Various
- Course rating: Various
From courses that take a little as an hour to complete, to courses that take as long as 14 hours to complete, LinkedIn Learning offers a variety of Data Visualization classes and tutorials that can help you to stay ahead of the curve.
Each class has been created by experts and industry professionals with years of experience. As a result, you will correctly learn the right skills to professionally combine data and graphics. Courses, that can all be taken for free, include Data Visualization Best Practices, Telling Stories with Data, Python for Data Visualization, and many more.
5. Learning Python for Data Analysis and Visualization (Udemy)
- Level: Intermediate
- Completion time: 21h 5m
- Cost: $79.99
- Certification: No
- Number of people who have completed the course: 185,845
- Course rating: 4.3/5 (out of 17,419 ratings)
As a Udemy bestseller, this course is only suitable for those with basic mathematical and intermediate python skills. With over 100 lectures, 21 hours of information and more than 100 example python code notebooks, this course will prepare you for a confident and exciting future in data science and visualization.
By the end, you will have an understanding of how to program in Python. You know how to create and manipulate arrays using numpy and python. On top of this, you will know how to use pandas to create and analyze data sets and how to use matplotlib to create beautiful data visualization. Now that you’ve learnt all of this, you will have an amazing portfolio.
Conclusion
So, there you have it… the 5 best data visualization courses that are available online. These online classes are best suited to anyone who is wanting to develop their skills and thrive in the workplace with new-found confidence and the ability to aid business leaders in decision making.
Having excellent data visualization skills will aid you hundreds of careers, as these skills will allow you to interpret data with confidence and advise those senior in the company of the best steps. Specific careers where data visualization skills are particularly helpful include:
- Accountant
- Actuary
- IT Manager
- Project Manager
- Sales Manager
- Software QA
- Stockbroker
- Systems Analyst
- Web Developer
To gather the data visualization skills that will make you a success in lots of careers, there are plenty of online courses available for you. There are free courses that take as little as an hour to complete, and there are more expensive courses that much longer to complete! Some courses are suitable for those with no previous data experience. Whereas other courses are better suited for those who have worked with data before, but are just looking for a little more direction with their skills.
Either way, the online classes in this list are the best of the best. So, which course you decide take depends on your experience, funds and spare time. Do you have a huge amount of money to spend on your skill development? Do you have a lot of spare time, or are you just looking for a quick, but effective, skill top up?
