Data Visualization
How (and why) I’m pivoting into Data Visualization:
The story of a computer programmer adapting, adjusting, and coming to terms with chronic pain and disability
Over the past weeks, I’ve been thinking about how to frame what I want to say here. How to describe the journey to where I am now, let alone where I’m heading?
I could jump right in and share with you how I’m trying to make my start in the world of data visualization; communicate with you my eagerness at this adventure, and start showing you the first of (hopefully) many visualizations.
But, my skills aren’t (yet) great, my progress is slow, and you’d be missing the entire background and story I’d like to share with you. So bear with me as I take a few steps back, and share with you what brought me to this moment.
An Introduction
I started a new mentorship program recently with the Data Visualization Society, as part of their first cohort to match young data visualization professionals with experienced practitioners. They paired me with Adam Mico as a mentor, for which I am very grateful, in part because of an idea he had that really challenged me. Adam suggested that as part of my journey I begin a blog, introducing myself and sharing my progress learning data visualization, but also opening up a bit about some of the personal challenges that are part of this story. Since then I have spent a lot of time thinking about what I want to say and how I want to say it.
I guess the gist of it is that things don’t feel so simple anymore 🤷🏼♂️. A lot of things have happened these past few years, but most recently, my body has begun (or so it feels) to rebel against me. At first a seemingly minor injury snowballed into many more painful and serious complications, which then cascaded into a host of significant physical limitations. These, in turn, have disrupted my life, career, friendships, and more. Quite distressing really, if you ask me.
If I think back on it, it seems as though everything has been affected. And I suppose that’s because it has.
Some clarity and some changes
What was going on?
You see, I was recently diagnosed with a rare connective tissue disorder called Ehlers-Danlos (EDS). I won’t get into too many details about what Ehlers-Danlos is in this post (as it would take us a while), but here’s a short snippet from the Ehlers-Danlos Society:
Connective tissue disorders disrupt these most fundamental processes and structures of the body, so resulting problems can be widespread, in a wide range of severities, and affect areas that might seem to be otherwise unrelated”
People with EDS experience a broad range of symptoms (often invisible from the outside) and with widely varying intensities: among these are long-term (chronic) widespread and regional pain, and fatigue that goes well beyond simple ‘tiredness’. I’ll link some additional resources below for those interested in learning more. For everyone else, here’s a little graphic that just about sums things:
How it affected me:
Like I briefly mentioned above, the pain and fatigue I have been experiencing has affected nearly everything in my life. It’s changed what activities I can and cannot do. It’s changed my lifestyle, and in its persistence, my outlook on things as well. This has been a compelling catalyst for change, and growth as well.
Only recently have I begun to understand that this new chapter of my life is here to stay, and with that, to accept that my future is not going to look how I expected it to, or how I planned. And so we find ourselves here — let’s be flexible, shall we?
For a while, it was mostly my legs that were affected, and standing for even a few minutes was very painful. It still is, though I have made some fantastic improvements on that front these last few months. Lately, however, I’ve started noticing problems with my arms: pain, weakness, and fatigue, in large proportions.
Having little-to-no mobility with my legs was hard on my personal life, as I couldn’t get out; now that the pain (and other complications) have migrated to my hands and arms, my professional life began to be affected as well.
My Background
I studied Electrical Engineering in New York City, and the curriculum was primarily focused on Communications and Signal Processing. However, I also got to explore the world of Machine Learning, and I found it beautiful, exciting, and challenging. Initially, the math drew me in, but I also loved thinking of ways to explain it, visualize it, and present it.
Image of the super-duper-cool kernel trick:
Post university I became first a software engineer, then a Machine Learning Algorithm Engineer, and later an MLOps engineer. In the last two positions I was part of a large team working on developing self-driving vehicles, and I loved the work. But, in these last 5-ish years I’ve spent as a software engineer, I don’t think I valued (or was even fully aware) of how much I did with my hands, and of just how much they gave me. Fast-forward to today and I know differently — I can barely use my phone, let alone type on a computer, without incredible pain and fatigue, and I couldn’t function properly as a working professional.
So, I’ve made the difficult yet necessary decision to take a pause from working. To take some moments to focus on my health and on healing, on learning to take care of this new body, and on figuring something else out for my career and my future. And with that, some big life changes are on the way.
New Things are On the Way
Hands-Free Coding:
First up is learn to switch to computer programming (and really all interaction with my computer) by voice. To that end, I’ve already started working with and learning a wonderful (and free) software called Talon Voice (there will be a lot more on that in future posts), but I have a long way to go before I reach any actual level of proficiency. So, instead of boring you with a demonstration of my mistakes right now, here is a video of someone who has mastered it, and it’s quite exhilarating to watch!
Talon is a wonderful tool/platform for those who need an alternate way of interacting with their computer. It brings much-needed support and accessibility to anyone who struggles with using their hands to type or click (they even have support for sound, gaze, and eye tracking capabilities). But, there is so much to learn, and it’s hard, at least for me. In many ways the whole endeavor feels like learning a completely new language, and not a computer one. I’m struggling with it, but I’m also learning and growing, as I hope you’ll see.
More Changes:
Making the switch to voice-programming is one big change, but these are some of the other decisions that I have made in the wake of all of this:
- To commit myself to living more authentically, and with less stress.
- To change careers to something that I not just find fascinating but that I am more innately passionate about — and to something that feels more natural. Something that has a component of telling stories about data. Something that compels me to move beyond just writing code and brings me to a more tactile and interactive relationship with the data that I work with day and night.
- And, something that will enable me to work highly flexible hours, or freelance, so that I can give my body the attention it needs.
Wrapping it Up
And so now we have arrived at the part where I tell you that I’m entering the world of data visualization and, for now, the world of Tableau. It’s not a completely foreign field to me — I’ve worked a lot with data (think a lot of involved data exploration analysis, and a lot of deep-dives into data sets), as well as some visualization platforms before (such as Apache Superset), but this is still something new — all of this is new!
I’m putting myself out there (and here), on so many fronts. Learning new technologies (shout-out to Tableau), changing careers, and opening up (for the first time) publicly and candidly about some of my personal struggles. And sharing my progress with data visualization, with you.
I also plan to share resources along the way that I have found valuable, with the hope that anyone else out there struggling with some of the things (such as newly found disabilities) that I am, might find some comfort, support, and helpful direction. I know how overwhelming it can be, and how hard it can be to find the right tools (or even to discover that they exist).
Final Thoughts:
Truthfully, I’m excited for this future. It took me a while to get to that point, but I really am excited by the possibilities that are opening up before me. And I’m excited about the work I have yet to create! Maybe I’ll come out with some really cool graphics about accessibility issues. Maybe my own accessibility issues will lead me to think about and create visualizations in ways that are in and of themselves built to be accessible. Or maybe something totally, and wildly, different. In the meantime, I invite you to join as I continue to share with you.
Next up: a hands-free software engineer turned data visualizer shares his first attempts at using Tableau.
Some Additional Resources and Tools:
Ehlers-Danlos:
- Ehlers-Danlos Society: https://www.ehlers-danlos.com/
- Some more about the Ehlers-Danlos Syndromes: https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/17813-ehlers-danlos-syndrome
Data Visualization:
- Data Visualization Society: https://www.datavisualizationsociety.org/
Hands-Free and other accessibility tools and features:
- Talon voice download: https://talonvoice.com/
- Mac facial expressions, and alternate keyboard actions. https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/change-alternate-control-methods-preferences-mchl7b437b35/12.0/mac/12.0
- Moving the pointer using head pointer on Mac https://support.apple.com/en-lamr/guide/mac-help/mchlb2d4782b/12.0/mac/12.0
- Setting custom Mac keyboard shortcuts. https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/use-keyboard-shortcuts-mchlp2262/12.0/mac/12.0
