This book is intended for those who work with data and also have the need to share insights regarding data. An essential aspect is a desire to help their end user “lift the veil" and understand underlying data features such as trends and patterns. Large organizations can have teams of developers and experts to achieve these goals, but many who could benefit from such capability (e.g., college faculty and graduate students) work with minimal resources and need to take a jack-of-all-trades approach to building applications; they need to solve the data access, data importation, data display, analytical tool build, server operating system management, and deployment problems (if your dashboard is wildly successful, you will need a scalable solution!). All these must be done in a realistic manner. Some corners can be cut - there are fewer deployment concerns if the project is behind a firewall or if the users are all experts, and primitive graphics can work if there are deadline constraints. Regardless, there is a daunting task and skillset list the graduate or faculty member must master.
