Weeks in Vis

This should be the last week in Vis announcement for the year. Wednesday is the last day of class. We’ve gotten to the end.

One last lecture. I’ll put together two things:

1. I’ll talk about presentations. Usually, it’s a free form, interactive rant. I have no idea how that will work online. I’ve been told its useful. I may try to update it to talk about the weirdnesses of online presentations. I suspect they aren’t going away. There is some “reading” Readings 15: Presentations.

2. I’ll try to do some “summary” to try to tie things together.

There will be a survey. This time, its mainly to help me. Yes, I know that you are doing your course evaluations as well (thank you). But I can really use your answers to help me plan future classes. I am very curious how things worked for you.

There is an online discussion - I’d like you to think about presentations a bit. Think about it before you hear me rant on Wednesday. And a seek and find - because they are hopefully habit by now. While this might be the last one you give to me, I hope you continue to observe examples in the world to learn from.

Of course there’s Design Challenge 3. Yes, the final deadline is a hard deadline. We have to grade things and we need enough time.

Readings 15: Presentations

• DC3-4: Visualization Check (due Mon, Dec 7)
• Online Discussion 15: Presentations (due Tue, Dec 8)
• Seek and Find 15: The End (due Fri, Dec 11)
• Lecture on Weds, Dec 9 Scientific Data Types
• Course Evaluation (if you haven’t done it already)
• Survey 15: End of Semester (due Fri, Dec 11)
• DC3-5: Final Hand-Ins (due Mon, Dec 14)

As the semester comes to a close, I find myself with so many things left to do and discuss with the class, but so little time.

We’ll cram two big topics into one week:

1. Standard Scientific Data Types - Scientific Visualization is a different field than the “information visualization” we’ve been studying. But I want you to at least have the basics.

2. Uncertainty - this is a “hot topic” right now, and very important in a lot of visualization work (or should be important).

But… since its the end of the semester, and you should be working on DC3, and we’re all a bit burned out from the COVID semester… we’ll have light reading, and we’ll skip online discussion and have a design exercise instead.

Instead of the “usual” online discussion - we’ll have the Dear Data Design Exercise (was Online Discussion 14). There will be no Tuesday required posting, just one required posting for Friday. It’s something that has been a fun in-class exercise over the years, and gives you a chance to reflect on all the design aspects you’ve learned over the semester.

There are DC3: The Tree of Stuff phases due. At this point, we’re mainly checking to make sure that people are making progress.

Other than that, it will be a pretty usual week… Seek and Find, Survey, Lectures, you know the pattern. Now that you’ve gotten used to it, we’ve gotten to the end - this is the last full week.

If you’re wondering what happened to 3D… It was the “loser” in the poll we had a few weeks ago. It was the topic that most people thought we could skip.

Readings 14: Uncertainty and Scientific Visualization

• DC3-3: Check-In (due Mon, Nov 30)
• Online Discussion 14: Dear Data Design Exercise (due Fri, Dec 4)
• Seek and Find 14: Uncertainty and SciVis (due Fri, Dec 4)
• Lecture on Weds, Dec 2 Scientific Data Types
• Lecture on Friday, Dec 4 Yea-Seul Kim Guest Lecture
• Survey 14: Uncertainty, SciVis (due Fri, Dec 4) - these are helping me help you, as well as (hopefully) helping you reflect on the material.
• DC3-4: Visualization Check (due Mon, Dec 7)

It’s (American) Thanksgiving week. In terms of class, this means no lecture on Friday, and, in general, a reduced week. We’ll only have one required posting. Seek and Find 13 is cancelled.

But the topic is a big one: Evaluation. How do we know that our visualization is good? Normally, I put this at the beginning of class, so we can use the ideas as we go through things. Evaluation shouldn’t be an afterthought: it should be core to our thinking about visualization.

We’ll have a lecture Wednesday. And Readings 13: Evaluation - which is a relatively big reading. These are particularly worthwhile - important stuff. The readings in the last weeks are light.

In these weeks, we will have “exercises” (due on Mondays). The Graph Exercise (due Monday, November 23) is about last week’s material. The Eval Exercise is due the following week - it’s a short thing to help you think about Munzner’s nested model (which is a big deal)!

Of course, DC3: The Tree of Stuff is going on. While the initial deadlines don’t ask you to do much (other than confirm you are working on it), the actual deadlines are coming up fast.

Readings 13: Evaluation

• Graph Exercise (due 11/23)
• DC3-2: DC3 Survey (due Mon, Nov 23)
• Online Discussion 13: Evaluation (due Tue, Nov 24)
• Lecture on Weds, Nov 23 Evaluation Lecture
• No Seek and Find
• No Survey
• DC3-3: Check-In (due Mon, Nov 30)
• Nested Model Exercise (due 11/30)

Now we switch gears from the low level (perception) to something more computational.

Graphs (as in “networks” not charts) are a common and important data type (or kind of data type). They have unique challenges and a rich literature. We can spend a whole semester on graphs - but we won’t.

We’ll have a graphs design exercise (details forthcoming), and DC3: The Tree of Stuff is mainly about a specific kind of graph. DC3-1: Project Kickoff (due Mon, Nov 16) and DC3-2: DC3 Survey (due Mon, Nov 23) don’t ask for much - but you might want to get started on the assignment since the end of the semester has a way of coming up fast.

But… this week we’ll have a special guest lecture that probably won’t be about graphs. Prof. Alex Endert from Georgia Tech will talk about interactive systems for analysis. Alex’s group has built many systems - some of them for graphs. But I think his focus will be broader than just graphs.

DC3 is starting up.

Readings 12: Graphs

• DC3-1: Project Kickoff (due Mon, Nov 16)
• Online Discussion 12: Graphs (due Tue, Nov 17)
• Seek and Find 12: Graphs (due Fri, Nov 20)
• Lecture on Weds, Nov 18 Alex Endert Guest Lecture
• Lecture on Friday, Nov 20 Lecture on Graphs
• Survey 12: Graphs (due Fri, Nov 20) - these are helping me help you, as well as (hopefully) helping you reflect on the material.
• DC3-2: DC3 Survey (due Mon, Nov 23)

Another week of perception related topics, this time focusing on color. I used to spend 2 weeks of class discussing color because there is so much to say. We won’t get to talk about everything.

We will, however, have another special guest on Friday: Prof. Danielle Szafir from the University of Colorado. Danielle is Dr. Color. She was also a student in the very first offering of this class! In preparation for her class visit, I’ve included one of her recent papers in the reading list.

DC1-5: Redux (due Mon, Nov 9) is due at the beginning of the week.

Design Challenge 3 ( DC3: The Tree of Stuff) is coming! If you want to do the DC3 Alternate Assignment: Machine Learning, you need to email the Professor to make arrangements before Friday, Nov 13, so you can have a proposal together for Monday, Nov 16. Otherwise, DC3-1: Project Kickoff (due Mon, Nov 16) basically only asks you to confirm that you’ve read the assignment.

My intent was to have another design exercise for this week - but I didn’t get it prepared in time. Expect some more design exercises to be mixed in with class activities over the remaining weeks.

Readings 11: Color

• Online Discussion 11: Color (due Tue, Nov 10)
• Seek and Find 11: Color (due Fri, Nov 13)
• Lecture on Weds, Nov 11 will be a lecture on Color
• Lecture on Friday, Nov 13 we’ll have our special guest
• Survey 11: Color (due Fri, Nov 13) - these are helping me help you, as well as (hopefully) helping you reflect on the material.

Now that we’ve returned from the conference, we can move to one of my favorite topics: perception. How we see, and how it influences visualization.

Visual perception is an entire field unto itself. We will just get a few basics of how people see, with a focus on the ramifications for visualization.

In addition to some standard readings, I am asking you to watch a video of a Steve Franconeri talk. Steve is a perceptual scientist who has become interested in visualization. He’ll be a special guest in class on Friday. Watch the talk first - then in class, we’ll apply the ideas to critique visualizations.

• Don’t forget to vote (if you are a US citizen) on Tuesday.

Readings 10: Perception

• Online Discussion 10: Perception (due Tue, Nov 3)
• Seek and Find 10: Perception (due Fri, Nov 6)
• Lecture on Weds, Nov 4 will be a fairly standard lecture - I’ll try to cover the basics of perception
• Lecture on Friday, Nov 6 will be the special guest
• Survey 10: Perception (due Fri, Nov 6) - these are helping me help you, as well as (hopefully) helping you reflect on the material.

There is no design challenge now… expect it soon. First I want to provide feedback on Design Challenge 1.

This week class is very different. As you hopefully already know from a the first post, and the additional details in [Details about IEEE Vis 2020 for Class](/posts/vis-details/), next week is IEEE Vis2020 (VisWeek). And your assignment is to attend the conference.

All class activities are changed to connect to the conference. See [Details about IEEE Vis 2020 for Class](/posts/vis-details/).

• There will be no class meetings (synchronous) - you should attend conference events.
• There are no readings for class - you should watch conference events, and possibly look at papers that interest you.
• Online Discussion 09: Vis Week (due Tue, Oct 27) asks about your experience with the conference.
• Seek and Find 09: Virtual Vis Week (due Fri, Oct 30) asks you to find something at the conference.
• Survey 09: Virtual Vis (due Fri, Oct 30) will ask you about the experience of using the conference as a class activity. It may have some more questions as well (I have some that were supposed to be on a previous survey, but I made a mistake and they were lost).

The following week, we’ll return top our normal form of class with a particularly exciting topics (for me): human perception and its impact on Vis. We’ll have a special guest visitor on Friday. There is a good amount of reading for next week, if you want to get started early, see Readings 10: Perception.

This week we’ll focus on interaction: it’s something you’ve definitely experienced, but maybe haven’t thought about. We’ll see some common ways of using interaction in visualization, as well as discuss ways to think about interaction. In particular, we’ll consider its costs and benefits.

There is no Design Challenge right now - but there is a design exercise (which has taken over the online discussion).

Looking ahead… Next week is the IEEE Vis Conference, which will “take over” class. Be sure to register (go to the web page and click on the button for the registration “helper” agent). You should expect to do some planning for how you will participate (i.e. pick what you will attend/watch) - however, the schedule isn’t completely posted (as of Oct 15). Expect some guidance and requirements in an upcoming announcement.

Readings 08: Interaction

• Online Discussion 08: Interaction (due Tue, Oct 20) is the The Paris Apartment Problem: A Design Exercise and some thinking about interaction.
• Seek and Find 08: Interaction (due Fri, Oct 23) asks you to look for a good example of interaction.
• Lectures on the 21st and 23rd will combine discussion of the design exercise with “lecture” and discussion about interaction.
• Survey 08: Interaction (due Fri, Oct 23) - these are helping me help you, as well as (hopefully) helping you reflect on the material.

This week, we’ll continue our discussion of scale, but turn our attention to issues related to having too many dimensions.

At the beginning of the week, we wrap up Design Challenge 1 - you’ll turn in your final report and peer reviews. So you should be expecting Design Challenge 2 to be starting right away…

But (surprise!) I have decided to cancel Design Challenge 2! (if you’re curious what I had in mind, you can see the draft at DC2: Spaghetti Plots). Expect an announcement of what is happening and why - but basically, we’ll do 2 design challenges and take a little more time to make sure we really capture the lessons from them, rather than rushing through 3.

Readings 07: High-Dimensional Data

• Online Discussion 07: High-Dimensional Data (due Tue, Oct 13) is the last part of the Arrivals Exercise and some thinking about dimensionality reduction.
• Seek and Find 07: High-Dimensional Data (due Fri, Oct 16) asks you to look for examples .
• Classes will be pretty typical on Wednesday and Friday.
• Survey 07: High-Dimensional Data (due Fri, Oct 16) - these are helping me help you, as well as (hopefully) helping you reflect on the material.
• And, of course Design Challenge 1 has its last phase due DC1-4: Final Handin (due Mon, Oct 12). Design Challenge 2 has been cancelled. Some of it will be replaced.

This week’s topic is “Too Much Stuff” - what do we do as our data gets big? Scale is a fundamental challenge in visualization. We’ll learn some categories of strategies and how to apply them in our designs. Design Challenge 1 (DC1): One dataset / Four Stories wraps up, and we’re trying to do an “in-class design exercise” as an online, asynchronous activity.

Readings 06: Scale - are unusual because it has you pick some of the readings, and has things that are more of a “doing” than a reading.

• Online Discussion 06: Scale (due Tue, Oct 6) is first parts of the Arrivals Exercise.
• Seek and Find 06: Scale (due Fri, Oct 9) asks you to find visualizations in the wild.
• This week, we’ll have more typical lectures.
• Survey 06: Scale (due Fri, Oct 9) - these are helping me help you, as well as (hopefully) helping you reflect on the material.
• And, of course Design Challenge 1 is ongoing. Last week, DC1-3: Design Handins (due Mon, Oct 5) had you turn in most of your designs. This week DC1-4: Final Handin (due Mon, Oct 12) will ask you to turn in your final documents, and remaining visualizations, and to do peer critiques of some of your classmates’ work.

This is an unusual week. The topic, implementation, is unusual. While I’d like everyone to have a sense of the range of tools, and how you might select among them. But I don’t expect you to learn any specific tool (or more to the point, I don’t expect everyone to learn about the same tool).

This week is also special since we’ll have a guest lecture on Wednesday: Prof. Dominik Moritz from CMU (and Apple and Washington before that). In addition to being an expert on Vis implementation, he is a great speaker.

Readings 05: Implementation - are unusual because it has you pick some of the readings, and has things that are more of a “doing” than a reading.

• Online Discussion 05: Implementation (due Tue, Sep 29) will ask you to think about implementation choices that you will make.
• Seek and Find 05: Implementation (due Fri, Oct 2) asks you to think about how .
• In class we will have the guest lecture on Wednesday. Friday will be a more typical class.
• Survey 05: Implementation (due Fri, Oct 2) - these are helping me help you, as well as (hopefully) helping you reflect on the material.
• And, of course Design Challenge 1 is ongoing. Last week, DC1-2: Experiments / Drafts (due Mon, Sep 28) which checked that you got started. This week DC1-3: Design Handins (due Mon, Oct 5) will ask you to turn in visualizations. Note this is a hard deadline since we need to send out your designs for peer review.

This week, we’ll talk about encodings: the ways that we connect data to visual elements (so that they address tasks). These are the building blocks that we will use to create visualization (and decompose visualizations into for analysis).

Readings 04: Encoding - will point out the basics of encodings, and give you a first entry point to the literature on how to choose them.

• Online Discussion 04: Encoding (due Tue, Sep 22) will give you an opportunity to practice looking at visualizations in terms of encodings, and ask you to start to think about why you might pick one over the other.
• Seek and Find 04: Encoding (due Fri, Sep 25) will give you more practice at taking visualizations apart to understand them.
• In class we will focus on how the various encodings work together, in particular to assemble standard (and non-standard visualizations)
• Survey 04: Encoding (due Fri, Sep 25) - these are helping me help you, as well as (hopefully) helping you reflect on the material.
• And, of course Design Challenge 1 is ongoing. This week, you need to pick your data set and start working with it. Last week, DC1-1: Tableau Tests (due Mon, Sep 21) asked you to try out Tableau, while this week’s DC1-2: Experiments / Drafts (due Mon, Sep 28) asks that you start working with your data. this means you need to pick your dataset from DC1 Data Sets