D3(data driven documents), is a JavaScript library that can be used with HTML and SVG to create data driven, dynamic graphics on webpages. It is a very powerful set of tools, and the library incooporates a diverse set of modules. The point of D3, is to create data visualizations, and the D3 library has tools to create almost any graphic you could think of. Many amazing examples are accessable and a lot of users prefer to just plug their own data into something that has already been created by someone else. When learning D3, there are several conceptual roadblocks the novice user may encounter, depending on their level of experience with JavaScript and the browser. This How-To-Guide is meant to help someone with little knowledge of JavaScript programming practices and SVG understand how the basics of how D3 works. There will also be an example of importing outside data into some of the examples other users have created using D3.

Before diving into this tutorial, it would be a good idea to look over examples and the APIT. It would also be a good idea to get farmiliar with SVG.