This guide builds on First steps with Observable.

Let’s explore some data! You're probably familiar with the tabular view of data, like the one you see on the left. Each entry (or in our case, athlete) is represented by a row, and each column contains a different piece of data about them.

To see what data in Observable looks like, create a new JavaScript cell by clicking a button on the left and selecting JavaScript. Then type the variable name olympians into your new cell. This is one of the sample datasets from our standard library.

olympians

Run the cell by clicking Run cell or pressing Shift-Enter. You will see the word Array with a triangle ▶ next to it. An array is a group of objects that usually share the same structure. Click the triangle to expand the array into its objects, then click the triangle next to an object to see its properties.

We can think of each object in this array as one row in our table. Each named field within each object is a property of that object, which would appear in its respective column in a table.