RESOURCE: Creating a Dashboard for Interactive Data Visualization with Dash in Python

Programming Historian has released a lesson by Luling Huang (Missouri Western State University), titled “Creating a Dashboard for Interactive Data Visualization with Dash in Python.” The description for the lesson describes how, “Using two news media case studies, this lesson provides a practical guide for making digital humanities research outputs more accessible and engaging.” From the introduction to the lesson:

To advance open scholarship in the humanities it is important to make research outputs more accessible, both to other scholars and the general public. Creating a web-based interactive dashboard to visualize data results has become a popular method to achieve this goal. There are a wide range of examples, such as the StanceXplore project led by a team at Lund University that tracks social media data, Stephanie Boddie and Amy Hillier’s study that recreates W. E. B. Du Bois’ study of black residents in Philadelphia, and Johannes Burgers’ project that visualizes the narrative structure in William Faulkner’s work.

Unlike static graphs, interactive dashboards allow readers to explore patterns in data based on their specific interests by filtering, sorting, or changing views. Features like hover-over tooltips can also provide additional information without cluttering the main display. This lesson will walk you through the process of creating interactive dashboards using the open-source Dash library in Python and publicly available datasets.