One area I hope to grow and develop over the next year is data visualization. I can do simple charts and graphs and know the basics of design. However, there are so many cool things you can do now with more sophisticated software that I’d like to implement for my clients (see data visualization expert Amelia Kohn’s website for inspiration!). So I decided to sign up for the Introduction to Tableau course on DataCamp, which offers online courses that teach a range of data skills and software. This was my first time taking a Data Camp course from start to finish, and here is my honest review of the experience.

What’s Tableau?

Tableau is a powerful data visualization software that you can download for free. You can use Tableau to clean up messy data, create new variables, conduct analyses, and produce more detailed, intricate data visualizations than I have been able to pull off in Excel. Similar to Excel, users can create dashboards to see all their most relevant data in one place. However, Tableau can handle much larger datasets and integrates with other platforms like Google and Microsoft, making it easier to pull data sets from multiple sources.  

Does your nonprofit need to start using Tableau? In most cases, probably not, unless you are an organization working with large, complex data sets.  Do I need to learn Tableau for the type of work my clients bring to me? Debatable. Do I want to learn it anyway? Absolutely!

The pros

I think DataCamp is a great tool to use if you’re trying to learn specific software. It does a nice job of teaching the underlying components of how the software works and walks learners through specific examples using real data sets. If you get stuck, Data Camp provides hints to help you as you move through the examples. The course I took largely used World Health Organization (WHO) and housing data as examples, both of which are relevant for the kind of work many nonprofits are interested in (e.g., public health). I find that the more relevant a dataset is to my interests, the more likely I am to absorb the information.

Also, learners don’t need to download Tableau before taking the course. Instead, DataCamp provides a “sandbox”-like environment, where you can experiment with Tableau without having to install anything on your computer.  

The cons

I had two main problems with my experience using Data Camp:

1) You get points docked for using hints.

DataCamp gives learners points for completing videos and exercises. However, if you use their hints along the way, you lose learning points. I don’t feel strongly about my point totals, so it’s not the fact that I lost points that bothers me. Rather, it’s counterintuitive to me, as a teacher and a learner, to punish people when they ask for help. Sometimes you just need a little extra clarity, and there’s nothing wrong with that.

2) There’s not a human in sight!

The biggest problem, from my perspective and the way I like to learn, is that there isn’t a human being that I can talk to if I have a question. Sometimes the hints didn’t make sense. Other times, I had technical problems with the sandbox (why won’t the data load?!) and I had no idea how to fix it. And then, sometimes something in the presentation slides didn’t make sense, but too bad – I guess I won’t learn that particular concept today!

I don’t mind working by myself – I am a solopreneur, after all. But learning by myself is something else entirely. For me, it’s lonely and boring. I’d much rather have a few people to learn along with to make the material more engaging and have real conversations about application and skills that will benefit me more than just clicking through slides.

Multiple lessons learned

Whether a service like DataCamp will work for you depends on the kind of learner you are. If you’re very self-directed and are super-interested in the skill or software being taught, it’s a useful service that can show you a broad range of tools and techniques. However, if you’re more human-centered and prefer to learn through conversations and relationships, it’s probably not the right fit for you. You may be better off looking for small-group workshops or training programs that will allow you to learn from other people’s experiences as well as the instructors’ content.

If you’re not sure what kind of learner you are, you can try both types of training and see which one resonates with you the most. But when it comes to learning data skills, the most important thing is that you start somewhere. Even a less-than-perfect learning experience will teach you something about what kinds of environments work best for you and your learning style.

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