4 Courses to Start Your Data Studio Journey
Authored by Gordon Thomas, Edited by Gina Bremer, Image by Ethan Norgard
WHAT WE DID
In the first post in this series, 4 Courses to Start Your Power BI Journey, we set out to determine the best online courses to learn the basics of Microsoft Power BI. After finding few examples of course reviews that went beyond summarizing information from the course websites, we decided to complete our own analysis. We researched and chose well-reviewed courses, completed them, and evaluated them with our own comprehensive rubric of both quantitative and qualitative metrics. After a successful experiment with Power BI, we decided to repeat the process with our other data visualization tools: Google Data Studio and Tableau. In this post, we dive into our results from our Google Data Studio course evaluations.
Google Data Studio is another data visualization tool that can be used to build data dashboards and reports. What differentiates Google Data Studio from the other tools is how simple it is, how easy it is to learn, and that it’s totally free. With no licenses, no installs, and a very limited feature set, we have found the barrier-to-entry and learning curve to be significantly lower than Tableau or Power BI. The basic capabilities and clean user interface make creating attractive visuals and dashboards incredibly simple and intuitive. For more information on the tool, check out our latest blog post on The Use-Case for Google Data Studio.
So what are the best online courses out there to get started? Just as before, it was important to us that the courses we chose were all comparable in cost, format, and rating. We decided on four introductory courses ranging from $0 - $50 to evaluate and our new cohort of data visualization interns were each enrolled in one of the courses with the intention of gaining a foundational knowledge in the tool.
WHAT WE FOUND
The complete rubric can be found at the end of this post.
GOOGLE DATA STUDIO A-Z FOR DATA VISUALIZATION AND DASHBOARDS
Platform: Udemy | Lectures: 4 hours | Cost: $30
VOTED “BEST INTRODUCTION TO DATA STUDIO”
This course was our clear winner across the board, covering the vast majority of beginner content while providing clear instructions and making the material feel original and insightful. Our reviewers felt there was great variety in the lectures that even included lessons on design theory and data visualization best practices. This course is best for anyone wanting a complete introduction to Google Data Studio with an emphasis on style.
It is easy for a lengthy course to check all the boxes in content coverage, but it was the instructor’s ability to present the material in an engaging way that took this course above the rest. The material was arranged in a logical order and the pacing of the lectures was neither too fast nor too slow. The content was grounded in big-picture concepts of business intelligence and data visualization which lent to a greater sense of understanding. The biggest distinction from the other courses was how the instructor presented open-ended challenges instead of walking through every step of the process. To compliment that, the instructor applied real-world data and examples which helped solidify each lesson. This course covered 37 out of a possible 42 features, and while it did not introduce the most features of the courses we reviewed, it was the most thorough; spending the most amount of time on each feature before moving on.
GOOGLE DATA STUDIO COMPLETE TUTORIAL (2022) - MADE FOR MARKETERS, BY MARKETERS
Platform: YouTube | Lectures: 1 hour | Cost: Free
VOTED “BEST HIGH-LEVEL OVERVIEW”
This course is great for anyone wanting a high-level overview or refresher of Google Data Studio. At one hour in length, this course does a great job of trimming the unnecessary details in order to focus on the big picture. This course covered 20 out of 42 features through content that was refined and purposeful.
We felt that this course was unique because of its specific audience and angle. While we appreciated the targeted lens, introducing 20 features in one hour did result in this being the most dense course of any that we reviewed. This course also included a few advanced concepts relevant to the use-case which may be overwhelming for true beginners. The advanced concepts in combination with its runtime made the pace of the course feel somewhat frantic, requiring our reviewers to re-watch sections of the video to fully understand.
INTRODUCTION TO DATA STUDIO
Platform: Google | Lectures: 3 hours | Cost: Free
VOTED “LOWEST BARRIER TO ENTRY”
This course would benefit anyone looking for the most accessible introduction to Google Data Studio. Our reviewer described this course as, “Quick, easy, and overall well-designed course that provides a great overview of Google Data Studio.” Although it introduced the least amount of material of the four courses (covering just 15 out of 42 features), the design and structure of the course was intuitive, interactive and enjoyable.
It should be expected that the namesake company of Google Data Studio would create a course designed to properly demonstrate its product. This course can be taken in a single tab due to Google’s use of a virtual machine. It is mostly self-paced and there are numerous assessments and knowledge checks to keep you engaged. While we found the user interface and experience to be great, at times we found the content itself was lackluster due to its extreme simplicity. While this course effectively demonstrates what Google Data Studio is, it does not provide a comprehensive view of what Google Data Studio is capable of.
THE ULTIMATE GUIDE TO GOOGLE DATA STUDIO 2022
Platform: Udemy | Lectures: 5 hours | Cost: $50
VOTED “BEST RESOURCE”
On paper this course performed really well. This course would benefit anyone wanting a library of lectures they could hand-pick from when needing to learn or re-learn a specific topic. It was the most comprehensive; introducing every feature we considered essential to learning Google Data Studio (all 42 on our rubric). While the content was well-made and thought out, we had challenges in the execution of the course as a whole and it would not be our first choice for true beginners.
When studied independently, each lecture was easy to understand, the concepts were explained well, and every important topic was covered. But in this instance, we found that the whole was not greater than the sum of its parts. The structure of the content created confusion and frustration as the lectures did not always follow a logical progression. At times, a lecture would start with a dataset or visuals created without any mention. Instead of progressing through a course and building on each previous lecture, we found ourselves having to stop and pause the videos, figure out what steps had been taken and recreate those before we could continue.
Another source of confusion was that even with “2022” in the title, some of the information or processes shown were outdated and only corrected by a text slide after the video played. Our beginners were not able to follow along with every segment, and only after they moved on to the next were they notified that Google Data Studio had updated this feature and the process was now different.
WHAT WE LEARNED
With our second round of course evaluations, we’ve honed our methodology, focused our eye for critique, and improved our ability to spot the differentiators between courses. Each of the four courses we reviewed for this article was already popular and highly reviewed. There is no wrong answer in which course to choose; there is only which course best suits you.
If you are looking for comprehensive foundational knowledge, we recommend investing the time to complete the Google Data Studio A-Z for Data Visualization and Dashboards course on Udemy.
If you are looking to focus your learning and have a specific end-result in mind or want to see a real-world application, we recommend watching the more concise and content-dense Google Data Studio Complete Tutorial (2022) - Made For Marketers, by Marketers course on YouTube.
If you are interested in trying out Google Data Studio but don’t know where to start, we recommend the free and engaging Introduction to Data Studio course from Google.
Take one of these or another course for foundational learning? Let us know what you thought!
