The Week in Vis 04 (Mon, Sep 21-Fri, Sep 25): Encoding

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

What we’ll learn this week

The driving question for this week is: What are the (visual) building blocks that we use to create visualizations.

The idea here is that visual encodings are the “building blocks” from which we build visualizations. If we can understand them, we can build (or take apart) visualizations. Rather than worrying about a zillion different chart types, we can focus on understanding the building blocks, and build standard (and non-standard) designs as needed.

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. In class, we will focus on how we use these basic elements - both building up designs, as well as taking them apart for analysis.

The obvious questions is “how do we choose?” Unfortunately, we need to learn about encodings first before we can say much about choosing. So we’ll just get a taste of the scientific and design evidence we have for reasoning about them. The required reading will give you the historical paper that really serves as the starting point for the rigorous examination of encodings.

Other notes on class

Hopefully, you are becoming accostomed to The Weekly Rhythm of the class. We’ll try to keep to this pattern going forward.

Part of the pattern are design challenge elements due on Mondays.

One thing that is not part of the weekly rhythm is regular office hours. I haven’t established those yet. This week, I will have an open office hour on Monday, Sep 21 at 4pm. (the link has the Zoom link - which I didn’t want to put on the open web). This won’t work the following week. As always, if you want to set up a specific time, send me a note.

And, if you are going to miss class, please let us know via Piazza. If you send me email, I will forget.