This is an incorrect Stub – you really want THE ACTUAL DC2 PAGE.
This used to be known as “Design School in a Day” but it’s now a little longer than a day.
The Design School Assignment (described here) is due on Sunday, October 8th. You turn it in on Canvas.
The design school is in multiple parts:
- Reading/Discussion 5 – has the reading part of it. It requires some discussion
- Seek and Find 5 – has you look for a well designed object and see how the principles apply
- Seek and Find 6 – has you do a basic art school assignment (which will also help you think about abstraction)
- The assignment on this page – asks you to do some graphic design practice!
Overview:
I really wanted to teach you all about graphic design, but I am absolutely a non-expert. Providing artistic training is outside of my range (actually, I could really use it myself). But, I want you to get a dose of it. So, I figured I’d see what happens if I let you try it on your own.
Now, I don’t really believe that doing a little reading and some design exercises will instantly turn you into graphic designers. However, I do believe that this can get you to think about graphic design elements enough that we can be conversant about the issues for class.
The ideas for this assignment come from my friend Steve Franconeri at Northwestern (group website) who teaches a “visual communication” class in the psychology department. Parts 3 and 4 below (Re-Design and Explore Contrast) are an assignment in his (undergrad) class – which is in the psych department.
Here are the parts:
- Read: (the reading is part of Reading/Discussion 5) Chapters 2-6 of The Non-Designer’s Design Book by Robin Williams. This is a great book since it distills out some basic principles for those of us who aren’t designers. This is clearly not all there is, but it’s a good start. These chapters are short, and get the points across quickly. She distills things down to four principles: Contrast, Repetition, Alignment and Proximity. CARP, since she has enough design sense not to pick the other acronym. You can of course read more.
- Critique: Find something that is designed well in the graphic design sense (a “print” object, like a web page, or flyer, or page from a magazine or … – you can even do this with a visualization, not something textual). Critique it from the perspective of how the CARP principles lead to the success of the design. Note: not all good designs follow the principles, but many do. And for now, we’re looking to learn the rules before we get license to break them for good reason. So, try to find something that succeeds by demonstrating the rules. (this is Seek and Find 5)
- Re-Design: Now, find something that is poorly designed in the graphic design sense (there are tons of terrible things on the web). Do a re-design by adding the CARP principles. (do this as a mockup – use powerpoint or word or something – or sketch it and scan it). Showing the two side-by-side should make it clear what you did, but you should describe how the “bad” thing was bad because of not obeying the CARP principles, and/or how you added CARP principles.
This is due Sunday, October 8th – turn it in as part of a Canvas discussion.
Part of this assignment is that you should comment on other people’s redesigns. - Explore Contrast: This isn’t connected to the graphic design stuff above, but it’s a standard “art school” exercise that will really help you lean to look at things with an eye towards capturing the essence of visual things visually – a great skill for doing visualization. You’ll pick four things (real objects), and then make a sketch of each that contrasts the differences between them. You should turn in a a lineup of the 4 real things (pictures) and your sketch as a similar lineup. This will be much clearer when I show you some examples in class (I can’t post them, since they come from students). (This is Seek and Find 6)
Some notes on the Redesign Assignment
(since everything else is a normal assignment)
You need to turn in 2 pictures (a before and an after). And a description of how the “bad” thing was bad because of not obeying the CARP principles, and/or how you added CARP principles. In the past, we had people turn in PDFs (since we did peer review in class), but this year, we’ll try the peer part online – so try to get your design and redesign into a picture on Canvas.
You will turn this in by posting to a discussion on canvas. (here)
You are expected to comment on other submissions.
This is all Steve told his students:
Assignment (Re-design): Do a CARP redesign of a PowerPoint slide, flyer, poster, webpage, business card, graph, etc – your choice. Include a ‘before’ and ‘after’ shot on a single page PDF. Creativity counts, and don’t repeat examples from class. Tip: Pick your ‘before’ design before watching the CARP video, and think about the changes you’ll make while you watch the video. You don’t have to turn in 1 PDF per part – you can turn in 2 pictures per part. And you can do a business card, or book cover (although, you’ll learn something more by picking something more challenging).
Assignment (Explore Contrast): Pick four things that are similar in some ways, but contrast in ONE way that you’d like to highlight. Different types of leaves that you found outside, characters in a book, icons on your phone, ideas about political structures, anything! Visually depict the contrast among them, while eliminating all other sources of contrast. The chosen contrast should be extremely clear to the viewer – you shouldn’t need to provide any text that explains it. We’ll talk more about this assignment in class.
Note that for part 1, we’re doing it online, and for part 2, we’re doing it as a Seek and Find.
If you want another two examples for the Contrast assignment…
This is a placeholder posting. Expect content soon!
Due: Fri, Dec 15 (Cutoff:Sun, Dec 17)
Canvas Link: Seek and Find 15: Pick Something on CanvasGeneral Instructions: See the seek and find assignment rules
Specific Instructions (Discussion Prompt):
Seek and Find 15: Pick Something
This week, it’s your choice: pick a visualization. I’d like you to pick something that shows off the principles we’ve discussed over the semester. Preferably, something good: where the designer has made use of the things we’ve learned to make something that is effective.
In your write-up, provide a critique. How have the principles we’ve discussed influenced the design? How could things we’ve learned about been applied to make it better?
Initial Posting Due: Tue, Dec 12 at (Canvas Link)
Readings
For the last week, I am sure people will be focused on Design Challenge 3. The readings are light. A blog post and watching a video.
Presentations
I’m not sure how much of my rant on presentations I’ll give in class this year. But helping you think about presentations is something I like to do in this class (and all grad classes).
Before reading my notes, here are some caveats (note: this is taken from the 2012 class):
- The goals and standard for presentation really vary across venue/discipline. What we value in computer science (in particular the areas I work in) are quite different than in other disciplines. It’s hard for me to discuss this without value judgement (since I am bred to believe in the “CS way”), but I also plead ignorance to the practices in other area. I’d like to use this as a chance to learn about others.
- I don’t consider myself to be a great presenter. Do as I say, not as I do. The upside of this, is that it means I think about how to be better at it.
- A lecture is not the same as a talk, so what you see in class is quite different than what you would see in one of my talks.
- Even within a particular style/venue/type of talk, there is a wide range of opinions on what is good talk, what the goals should be, …
- The “right answer” depends not only on the situation, but on the person. But that will be one of the biggest lessons I hope you get. I may not speak to your specific case, but hopefully, you can see how the general lessons apply.
- As you might guess, I have strong opinions. But you don’t have to guess at what they are, since I’ve written them down.
Given that…
My real goal is to get you to think about what might make for a good presentation, and to form your own strong opinions – even if they are different than mine.
Given that, read my posting about presentations. Yes, it’s from a 2011 class – but I think if I were updating it, it wouldn’t be much different.
Video Presentations
Hans Rosling is a famous presenter – talking about social issues around the world in venues like TED, etc. He was famous for presenting data in a compelling way to make his points for a broad audience. Sadly, he died this year. But his influence is significant (both on presentating data and on the world in general).
If you haven’t seen a Rosling talk, you need to experience one. If you have seen one, you probably won’t mind watching another.
There are lots of videos of rosling presentations – here’s one I have handy, or here’s another one.
The actual point of Rosling is not his visualizations (he does use standard visualization effectively – often with animation), but rather as a way to talk about presentations.
Online Discussion
Initial Posting Due: Tue, Dec 12 at (Canvas Link)
For the two required postings:
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For my rant on presentations: My viewpoint is a little bit skewed toward CS academic talks – but I think the main lessons apply broadly. Comment on how this relates to you. If you’re outside of CS, how do the standards of your field differ? If you’re within CS, how does this relate to talks you’ve seen or other advice you’ve been given.
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For the Rosling video you watched: Say which video you watched (give a link, especially if it’s not one of the two I gave). Say why you think he’s good (or not), but also comment on why he is often used as an example for presentation style. What can you learn from him (positive or negative)?
Due: Fri, Dec 08 (Cutoff:Fri, Dec 15)
Canvas Link: Seek and Find 14: 3D on CanvasGeneral Instructions: See the seek and find assignment rules
Specific Instructions (Discussion Prompt):
Seek and Find 14: 3D
In this seek and find, you need to find a visualization that shows something in 3D. Preferably something where the author has put some effort into designing it so that 3D works in the 2D image (but if 3D is failing to show depth, then you might discuss why).
It should be something where there really is 3D – either it’s showing real 3D objects, or using a third spatial dimension to show data. You should not pick something where 3D is just decoration (e.g., a 3D pie chart or bar chart)
In your discussion, be sure to discuss why this is (or isn’t) a good use of 3D, and how the author has tried to make it easier to perceive depth (or if they haven’t tried, what they might do instead).
Initial Posting Due: Tue, Dec 05 at (Canvas Link)
Readings
On 3D Perception…
- Getting The Information: Space and Time (Chapter 5 of Visual Thinking for Design) (Ware-5-GettingInfo.pdf 3.8 mb)
- Todd, J. T. (2004). The visual perception of 3D shape. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 8(3), 115–121. (pdf on canvas) (doi)
For Scientific Visualization, there is nothing I know of that is at the right level of detail. The chapter from Munzner will give you some of the basic concepts.
- Arrange Spatial Data (Chapter 8 from Munzner’s Visualization Analysis & Design) (Munzner-08-ArrangeSpatial.pdf 1.0 mb)
Optional
This is the closest thing I can find to a survey paper about volume rendering (which is probably the most common case). The front parts cover the basics, but it quickly gets into more detail than you probably want.
- Arie Kaufman and Klaus Mueller. Overview of Volume Rendering. Chapter 7 of The Visualization Handbook (Hansen and Johnson eds), Academic Press, 2005. (pdf on Canvas)
More resources on these topics are on the readings page from last semester. All of the links should work for you, except for the Illustration handbook (which may be my favorite):
This is a chapter of the “Guild Handbook of Illustration” that helps illustrators learn to convey 3D shape in their drawings. A lot of it is about how to think about how light helps you perceive shape (and it does so with fabulous examples). When they start talking about the actual techniques (like how to use charcoal to make the pictures), it’s a little less interesting.
- Light on Form (Chapter 4 of the Guild Handbook of Illustration) by Jessup and Mascaro. Canvas
Online Discussion
Initial Posting Due: Tue, Dec 05 at (Canvas Link)
There are a lot of topics that we’ll go over quickly this week. And I suspect people will be focused on Design Challenge 3, so we’ll have a little less to discuss. And the readings have been paired down to a bare minimum.
The question I was going to ask was: what can artists/visualization makers do to better convey 3D in 2D pictures?
Due: Fri, Dec 01 (Cutoff:Fri, Dec 08)
Canvas Link: Seek and Find 13: Graphs on CanvasGeneral Instructions: See the seek and find assignment rules
Specific Instructions (Discussion Prompt):
Seek and Find 13: Graphs
For this seek and find, you need to find an example of a graph visualization. It doesn’t have to be a node-link diagram (but it can be). It cannot come from a paper about graph visualization.
Critique it – describe tasks that it might be for, and consider how well it addresses them How does it address the issues in graph visualization?
If it is a node-link visualization, describe what the positions mean. If you can think of a non-node-link diagram visualization for the data describe it or sketch it.
If it isn’t a node-link visualization, make sure to explain what the nodes and links are. Describe why the design may be preferable to a node-link diagram (or why you might have prefered a node-link diagram).
Initial Posting Due: Tue, Nov 28 at (Canvas Link)
Readings
Finding appropriate readings is hard. The first two are required:
- Arrange Networks and Trees (Chapter 9 from Munzner’s Visualization Analysis & Design) (Munzner-09-ArrangeNetworks.pdf 879 kb)
- TreeVis.net has a huge number of visualizations of trees. Look at the pictures and try to get a sense of how many different ways there are to do this.
Tamara Munzner gave a talk that gets across the point that there are many ways to show a graph. It gets the point across that there are lots of design choices and options. Plus, you’ll get a sense of the person behind the book (although, this was almost a decade ago). But, sitting through the hour is a bit much – so it’s OK to just watch a little bit and read through the slides.
- Tamara Munzner. 15 Views of a Node-Link Graph: An InfoVis Portfolio, Google TechTalks, Mountain View CA, 6/06. Talk video (Video on YouTube) (slides)
I wanted to find a survey paper that covered the more computational aspects (the layout algorithms). I haven’t found one that I like. Instead, I am recommending this paper. Read it to get a sense of what the basic methods are – don’t try to get at all the details and subproblems and …
- von Landesberger, T., Kuijper, A., Schreck, T., Kohlhammer, J., van Wijk, J. J., Fekete, J.-D., & Fellner, D. W. (2011). Visual Analysis of Large Graphs: State-of-the-Art and Future Research Challenges. Computer Graphics Forum, 30(6). doi:10.1111/j.1467-8659.2011.01898.x (official version) (authors’s copy)
Optional
There is a lot out there. One good general source for background is the book “Handbook of graph drawing and visualization” – which you can find drafts of the chapters online. In particular, the Chapter on Force-Directed Layout (at least the beginning parts of it) gives a review of the classical algorithms.
- Kobourov, S. (2016). Force-Directed Drawing Algorithms. In Handbook of Graph Drawing (pp. 383–408). (pdf online)
For a modern algorithm for small to medium graphs:
- Dwyer, T. (2009). Scalable, Versatile and Simple Constrained Graph Layout. Computer Graphics Forum, 28(3), 991–998. (pdf) (doi)
It’s a modern take on graph layout. It considers many aspects about what makes for a good layout, and uses real optimization methods to achieve them. The method gives a sense of the evolution and all the methods that came before it). This might be a little too CS-technical for most people. Don’t worry about the details of the algorithms, but get a sense of the kinds of things the best algorithms try to achieve. In practice, people usually use simpler algorithms (force-directed layout)
Online Discussion
Initial Posting Due: Tue, Nov 28 at (Canvas Link)
For this week’s discussion prompts, here are two questions that will hopefully help you connect the readings to problems you encounter (like the Design Challenge).
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When you look at the treevis.net website, you can see a lot of different ways to represent a tree (which is a special kind of graph). Pick one that you found surprising/weird (at least from the picture, you don’t need to read the paper). What do you think is good/bad about it? Why did you think the author made it? Does the design extend to the more general case of a directed graph?
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A node-link diagram is the standard way to show graph data – but it’s clearly note the only one. What are the pros and cons of a node link diagram?
Due: Fri, Nov 24 (Cutoff:Fri, Dec 01)
Canvas Link: Seek and Find 12: Too Much Stuff on CanvasGeneral Instructions: See the seek and find assignment rules
Specific Instructions (Discussion Prompt):
Seek and Find 12: Too Much Stuff
Identifying something interactive is OK (definitely give a link, but please add a picture if you can).
In this seek and find, you need to find an example of something that shows a lot of data – using (at least) one of the techniques we talked about in class for dealing with “too much stuff.” In your description, be clear about why you think there’s “a lot of data” and what approach the visualization uses to address that scalability challenge. Is the approach effective?