Visualisation is fundamentally the process of creating a mapping function between the dimensions of your domain data and that of the "screen" (whether it's DOM,

Visualisation is fundamentally the process of creating a mapping function between the dimensions of your domain data and that of the "screen" (whether it's DOM, SVG, Canvas, etc.). D3 is just a library of higher-order functions that can help you produce that mapping function. If you can grasp this idea of visualisation as creating a mapping function, then D3 becomes a beautiful toolbox for assisting you. You decide which dimension of your data you want to represent as the horizontal dimension, which as the vertical, as color, as size, etc. You decide how you want to scale them. Then you use D3's high-order functions to create the appropriate individual mapping functions, compose them into your complete visualisation function, and pass it your domain data. If you think of D3 as a "charting library", or a collection of visualisation classes or objects, then you're going to struggle. But the problem isn't with D3, it's that you haven't really understood the paradigm of the library.