Wow, we’ve gotten to the end.

One big thing this week will be course evals. I may also give an additional survey to get more feedback. I actually really care about this, since I do want to know people’s opinions so I can plan future Vis courses. The exact mechanics will still be worked out (since there are some issues with the regular course evaluations, but that’s a longer story).

In class this week…

• On Tuesday, I plan to talk about traditional “Scientific” visualization.
• On Thursday, I plan to try to give a summary of where we’ve been, but I might decide to talk about any of the topics we missed over the course of the semester (including animation and presentations). We’ll probably do a last design exercise, because people seem to like them. And its good practice.

Due this week…

• The design challenge. People did phase 1. So I think everyone’s on top of it.
• One last Seek and Find, due May 6.
• One last discussion (with a “reading”). Initial posting due on Monday May 4 – this will hopefully provoke some discussion through the week.
• One last 838 only assignment, initial posting due May 4, but again, I am hoping this will lead to some discussion.

We’re really getting to the end!

Here are the last assignments…

• While not an assignment, we will do course evaluations on-line. Details coming soon. I really do care about your opinion, so please take the time to fill out an evaluation (even if just the few moments to fill in the numerical questions). I may or may not do an additional survey to ask class-specific questions to get your advice on how to do this class next time.
• There is one last seek and find to do, due Weds May 6.
• There is an 838 only assignment, due Mon May 4, to discuss Visualization in your field. Hopefully, this will lead to some interesting discussion.
• There is a last “Reading/Discussion” assignment on animation and presentations, due Monday May 4, which again may lead to a lot of discussion. This is “reading” in quotes because it’s more of a watching (videos) than a reading.
• There is the last regular reading (about D3) it’s due by May 1st.
• There is the seek and find on 3D due April 29.
• And, of course, there is the Design Challenge, with phases due on April 29th and May 6th. Actually, given the long list of thing above, let’s make that May 8th. I wanted it to be due before the last day of class so we could look at the results in class, but…

That’s quite a flurry at the end. But, there’s no exam, or summary activity.

Also: we will be doing grading early during exam week. The good news is, we’ll get grades back to you early in the week. The bad news is, we’ll need to have all the information to make grades. This will limit our ability to take late assignments. There’s some university policy about things not being due during exam week, which means that officially, everything is due by May 8th.

Hard to believe we’re so close to the end.

This week has the best punny title: D3 and 3D. They have nothing to do with each other, except they are transpositions of the names, and they are topics I wanted to talk about in class, but, of course, there isn’t enough time to do them justice.

On Tuesday, we’ll talk about the 3rd dimension. How we see it, how we show it with computers. What this might mean for visualization. As you can guess, it’s a huge topic, and we’ll barely scratch the surface. Before Tuesday’s lecture, please do Reading 22A which will give you a good start into the huge topic.

As part of our dipping our toes into the world of 3D, you’ll need to do Seek and Find 13. Given the past few seek and finds, I’ll bet you’ll find some things that are really cool.

On Thursday, we’ll talk about a toolkit for building in-browser 2D visualizations called D3. If you’re not a programmer, you might think “yawn” to a toolkit, but I think its actually interesting/helpful to see how they used their knowledge of what kinds of visualizations people need to make to create tools for making them. The abstractions are interesting for thinking about vis – even if you don’t program using D3. You can do the discussion part of Reading 22B after Thursday’s lecture, but you might want to at least  look at the readings.

Phase 1 of the Design Challenge is due on Wednesday, April 29th. I’m curious to see what you come up with!

At some point in the next 2 weeks (e.g. before the end of the semester), I will also ask you to do a survey to help me plan future versions of the class, as well as standard course evals.

The final week, we’ll talk about traditional scientific visualziation (volumes, flows). This could be a whole class in itself. And we’ll also probably do some kind of activity to sum up the semester. I’m going to ask you to watch a video and think about presentations. Maybe we’ll talk about presentations in class.

Last week, we talked about strategies for dealing with lots of objects and lots of dimensions. I waved my hands about dimensionality reduction and PCA, and maybe you got some of the intuitions behind it (if you hadn’t seen it before). I also (briefly) showed off some of the work we’ve done related to the problems (splatterplots and explainers)

Next week, the big topic will be uncertainty. It’s a big hard topic, but we won’t spend a ton of time on it. We’ll also look at examples of visualization systems to see how they embody some of the concepts we’ve learned about. And, we’ll get started on the last Design Challenge, which will give me an excuse to tell you about Explainers (a project I am very proud of!).

• Tuesday,  I’ll talk about Explainers (as a way to reinforce dimensionality reduction, but also to set up the Design Challenge). We’ll discuss the design challenge a bit. And then, we’ll look at Serendip, a system we built in our group that deals with large data visualization in various ways.
• The reading and discussion for this week is about Uncertainty. It’s not due until Wednesday, since I am posting it late, and we won’t talk about uncertainty until Thursday.
• As usual, we have a seek and find due on Wednesday. Seek and Find 12 is about uncertainty visualization.
• The final design challenge, as well as information about grading, will be posted soon. (maybe even over the weekend). It’s all set – it just needs to be checked and details added.
• There isn’t an 838-only assignment due this week – but there will be one announced for the following week.

The following week, we’ll talk about 3D and D3 (not that those topics go together, its just that its what’s left, and it makes for a great palindromic pun). The last week, we’ll talk about some of the topics that are left over (animation, traditional scientific visualization, depicting motion, …)

Last week, we tried to motivate the challenges of dealing with scale. And we didn’t even get to millions of data elements (never mind more than that). So for this week, we’ll try to learn more about how we handle the challenges of scale in visualization.

• Reading 20 will give you some of the general approaches. There’s an initial posting due before class on Tuesday the 14th, and additional discussion afterwards. For this reading, 838 students have to do some extra stuff.
• Seek and Find 11 will ask you to find an example in the real world of the kinds of techniques we’re learning about.

During the week, we’ll tell you about the next design challenge. During class, we’ll also see some examples of work here at UW that tries to address some scalability challenges.

Two weeks ago, we started to learn about interaction. Then we had Spring Break (and for Alper and I, the Vis paper deadline). We also had a chance to look at the results of the survey on how to adapt class for the last few weeks.

For this week…

• On Tuesday, there is no lecture, but instead there is a “virtual guest lecture.” Watch one of the two videos and comment on what you’ve learned.
• On Thursday, we’ll have an in-class design exercise to remind ourselves what we’ve learned so far, and to motivate some of the things that are coming up.
• Besides the virtual guest lecture, there are no other assignments for this week. No seek and find (sorry to those who really like them!), no extra readings, no 838 assignments …

The topic for next week will be dealing with larger data (“too much stuff”) and we will get back to our normal schedule of events. Expect a plan for the rest of the semester soon.

Last week, we talked about multi-variate encodings.  We also submitted our four stories exercise, and had a mini-glyph design exercise where we talked about the consequences of packing information into a small space.

This week, we’ll talk about interaction… although we’ve been hitting on particular points in all weeks leading up to this point.  The readings are again combined; do some reading for Tuesday, and then for the rest of the week.

Remember, we have no class on Thursday (March 26th) this week.

For the week:

• For Monday, you need to do Reading 18, and make an initial posting to the discussion.  You might want to do all the reading since there isn’t that much more.
• In class Tuesday, we’ll talk about interactions and the different affordances.  We’ll look at some standardized ways to implement and deal with data at scale with interaction.
• For Wednesday, you have to turn in your critiques for the Four Stories assignment.  You can see all of the stories here.
• For Wednesday, Seek and Find 10 for visualizations incorporating interaction is due.

The week following break, we will not have any class on Tuesday (April 7th).  In lieu of class, we would like you to ‘attend’ a virutal lecture by watching a capstone presentation from one of the two major data visualization conferences in the last year.

Last week, we talked about graph data. We also did the first phase of our data exercise, and we had a mini-design exercise where I got a lot of feedback on how to improve how we spend our time in class.

This week, I’ll work on trying to find ways to implement those suggestions.

We’ll also talk about multi-variate data. The readings are combined: do some reading for Tuesday, and more for Thursday. And we’ll have the next phase of the data exercise.

So, for the week:

• For Monday, you need to do Reading 16, and make an initial posting to the discussion. You might want to do all the reading (for Reading 17 as well), since there isn’t that much more, and you have other things due Wednesday.
• In class Tuesday, we’ll talk about high-dimensional data. And we might try to have some small-group activity around it (if I can figure out something to do in class).
• For Wednesday, you have to turn in your designs for the design exercise.
• There is no Seek-and-Find this week.
• There is no 838 only assignment this week. (although there is a little extra in the design exercise).
• On Thursday, well, I am not sure what will happen in class on Thursday, since I am re-thinking how we’re doing things based on the feedback.
• On Thursday or Friday, you will get some of your classmates’ designs to critique. More instructions forthcoming.

The following week… we’ll only have class on Tuesday. There is a reading (Reading 18 and 19) and discussion on interaction. You’ll also have to do some peer critiques for the design exercise. We might do some in-class critiques of the design exercise as well. (to be determined)

Writing things that way makes me realize that we’re more than halfway through the semester. Wow.

Last week, we hopefully tied together a lot of the pieces on encoding and layout. We also did some design practice, and an introduction to Tableau.

This week, we’ll consider a different kind of data: graphs. Not graphs as in a chart (line graph), but graphs as the mathematical abstraction (data about relationships). We’ll also have the first phase of our first data exercise.

• For Monday (before Tuesday’s class), you need to do Reading 14 and make an initial posting.
• In Tuesday’s lecture, we’ll talk about graph visualization and layout.
• For Wednesday(before Thursday’s class), you need to read some other things (there’s a choice) and say more in the discussions.
• For Wednesday, there is also a Seek and Find about Graphs.
• For Wednesday, the 838-Only assignment on graphical perception is due (this is the extended deadline).
• In Thursday’s class, you need to bring your rough drafts for the Data Exercise. We’ll do a little peer critique to help you improve them, and talk more about graph visualizations and critiques.

There will also be another class survey coming up as well – this time to get a sense of how we might improve the class, and which activities seem to be working for different people.

This past week we talked about color. We read about color. We saw color. Students sent me even more pictures of color effects. It was a colorful week. I think we all learned that we have a lot to learn about color!

So now, it’s time to talk about other visual channels, and encodings in general.

We’ll also move past our Design Challenge and go onto our first Data exercise!

So…

• For Tuesday, March 3, We’ll have a lecture on encodings. There’s a reading and discussion due (Reading 12). As an experiment, the readings for this week are one big reading. Do some of it for Monday (before class Tuesday) and make your initial posting. And then make another posting when you’ve read more.
• For Thursday (March 5th), there are a bunch of things due (technically due Wednesday night). Your critiques for the Design Challenge are due. There is another Seek and Find due (although, we’ll let you skip the searching part). And you should have done more of the readings.
• On Thursday, March 5th, we’ll take some time to introduce the Data Exercise. Alper will show off some tools you might want to learn about (including Tableau). We’ll also continue to talk about encodings.
• On Friday (March 6th) there is an 838 only reading assignment that is “due” – although, we are giving you a free extension.

The following week (March 9) we’ll continue talking about encoding and layout, with a focus on a particularly tricky kind of data: graphs and networks (graphs in the math sense, of being a set of objects with connections between them).