diff --git a/pyproject.toml b/pyproject.toml
index 090155e..0c5d478 100644
--- a/pyproject.toml
+++ b/pyproject.toml
@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 [tool.poetry]
 name = "zeno-client"
-version = "0.1.10"
+version = "0.1.11"
 description = "Python client for creating new Zeno projects and uploading data."
 authors = ["Zeno Team <hello@zenoml.com>"]
 license = "MIT"
diff --git a/zeno_client/client.py b/zeno_client/client.py
index cb7261f..8a0f524 100644
--- a/zeno_client/client.py
+++ b/zeno_client/client.py
@@ -1,10 +1,11 @@
 """Functions to upload data to Zeno's backend."""
 import io
+import json
 import re
 import urllib
 from importlib.metadata import version as package_version
 from json import JSONDecodeError
-from typing import List, Optional
+from typing import Dict, List, Optional, Union
 from urllib.parse import quote
 
 import pandas as pd
@@ -72,7 +73,7 @@ def upload_dataset(
         df: pd.DataFrame,
         *,
         id_column: str,
-        data_column: str,
+        data_column: Optional[str] = None,
         label_column: Optional[str] = None,
     ):
         """Upload a dataset to a Zeno project.
@@ -80,7 +81,7 @@ def upload_dataset(
         Args:
             df (pd.DataFrame): The dataset to upload as a Pandas DataFrame.
             id_column (str): Column name containing unique instance IDs.
-            data_column (str): Column containing the
+            data_column (str | None, optional): Column containing the
                 instance data. This can be raw data for data types such as
                 text, or URLs for large media data such as images and videos.
             label_column (str | None, optional): Column containing the
@@ -89,7 +90,11 @@ def upload_dataset(
         if (
             id_column == label_column
             or id_column == data_column
-            or label_column == data_column
+            or (
+                label_column == data_column
+                and label_column is not None
+                and data_column is not None
+            )
         ):
             raise ValueError(
                 "ERROR: ID, data, and label column names must be unique."
@@ -100,7 +105,7 @@ def upload_dataset(
         if id_column not in df.columns:
             raise ValueError("ERROR: id_column not found in dataframe")
 
-        if data_column not in df.columns:
+        if data_column and data_column not in df.columns:
             raise ValueError("ERROR: data_column not found in dataframe")
 
         if label_column and label_column not in df.columns:
@@ -306,7 +311,7 @@ def create_project(
         self,
         *,
         name: str,
-        view: str,
+        view: Union[str, Dict] = "",
         description: str = "",
         metrics: List[ZenoMetric] = [],
         samples_per_page: int = 10,
@@ -317,8 +322,8 @@ def create_project(
         Args:
             name (str): The name of the project to be created. The project will be
                 created under the current user, e.g. username/name.
-                project: str,
-            view (str): The view to use for the project.
+            view (Union[str, Dict], optional): The view to use for the project.
+                Defaults to "".
             description (str, optional): The description of the project. Defaults to "".
             metrics (list[ZenoMetric], optional): The metrics to calculate for the
                 project. Defaults to [].
@@ -336,8 +341,14 @@ def create_project(
         """
         if name == "":
             raise ValueError("Project name cannot be empty")
+
         if re.findall("[/]", name):
             raise ValueError("Project name cannot contain a '/'.")
+
+        # if view is dict, dump to json
+        if isinstance(view, dict):
+            view = json.dumps(view)
+
         response = requests.post(
             f"{self.endpoint}/api/project",
             json={