Design Exercise 7-3: Do-Overs

in Design Exercises (List Page)

Hopefully, this class has helped you become a better visualization designer than you were at the beginning of the semester. This is your chance to show it: we want you to take visualizations that you made earlier in the semester and improve them.

Note: this module has three (small) Design Exercises. This is the third of three.

This design exercise will be turned in as Design Exercise 7-3: Do-Overs (due Fri, Dec 12). There is a hard cutoff of Monday, December 15th for late assignments.

The Assignment

Pick two visualizations that you made earlier in the semester for one of the previous design exercises. Pick ones you think you can improve on.

Redesign them.

Submit the original, your redesign, and an explanation of how you applied principles from class to improve the design.

We will judge the resulting visualizations, but the main thing we are looking for is the contrast: have you made changes according to what you have learned.

We will also be looking at your explanation: it should tell us how the ideas from class lead you to the final design (with an emphasis on the improvements).

Note: If you received critiques on your design, that can make it easier for you to improve it. We will have higher expectations. Describe what you learned from the critiques in your explanation.

What if… My visualizations are all already great?

If you have gotten an A on the prior assignments, maybe your designs are already optimal. In that case, try to provide a design that is equally good but applies a different strategy. Your comparison should discuss how the two represent different good choices (and possibly give arguments for selecting among the two). Your explanation should describe how the new visualization builds on principles from class.

Grading

We will give you a grade based on…

  1. The quality of the resulting design.
  2. The improvement relative to the original (unless both designs are great).
  3. How well the explanations connect to the principles we learned about in class.

Warning: we will have less tolerance for egregious problems that you should have learned about by now. Your improved designs will need titles and captions (unless they are really self-evident), not use clearly incorrect encodings, etc.

Note: we will not change your original grade.

Mechanics

This design exercise will be turned in as Design Exercise 7-3: Do-Overs (due Fri, Dec 12). There is a hard cutoff of Monday, December 15th for late assignments.

The hand-in form will have the following questions:

  1. What was the original submission (provide the design exercise number and the question number on the survey form)?
  2. Upload the original design.
  3. Upload the improved design.
  4. Explain how the improved design applies concepts from class to achieve its effectiveness, in particular, how they lead to the improvements in the redesign.

(Answer those questions twice - once for each of the two visualizations you have chosen)