The Week in Vis: Week 08 (Oct 21-25)

in Weeks in Vis

After last week’s conference week, we’re back to a more regular schedule, with all the components of class. We’ll experiment with the class rhythm a little. The topics are a bit of a grab bag… a chance to catch up on some things that we skipped over.

The original idea for this week was to talk about “Why Vis” again (we did this in week 2), but from the perspectice of “Why does Vis work?” The two main readings (and one of the lectures) will cover some of the perceptual and cognitive foundations - which can help explain why vis is attractive.

In the past, the discussion of “Why Vis” was connected to a related “Why Not Vis” topic - this is optional reading, and I might mention it in lecture. Or I might save it for later in the semester.

Remainders from last Friday (10/18): Discussion 07, Seek and Find 07, DE06: One Data Set, Four Stories (Census Data Edition)

This week, I am trying a few changes to the schedule.

The surveys are moved to Friday. That puts a lot on Friday (seek and finds, design exercise, surveys). But, for this week, the design exercise (De07: Critiquing Census Data Stories) can be turned in up to Monday with no penalty (but a hard cutoff on Monday 10/28). The suveys can be turned in over the weekend (I really want to get them to influence some choices in how future weeks will go).

This week’s design exercise is De07: Critiquing Census Data Stories where you critique your classmates’ designs. We need you to turn these in by the cutoff so we can pass the results to them.

This week there is both a content survey and a class survey - both due on Friday (October 25).