The Week in Vis 01 (Mon, Sep 2 – Fri, Sep 6): What is Visualization

by Mike Gleicher on August 30, 2019

CLASS MEETINGS
  • Mon, Sep 2 – No Class (Labor Day)
  • Wed, Sep 4 – Intro
  • Fri, Sep 6 – ICE:two numbers(1)
WEEK DEADLINES

This is the first of the weekly “Week in Vis” postings. There are enough things going on in class that having easy pointers to what will happen is useful.

If you haven’t already done so, be sure to look through the Start Here page. In particular, the parts of class page will help you understand what you have to do this week, although the first week, the deadlines are a little skewed as we have some “getting started” issues. If you notice, the deadlines are all crossed out above – since realistically, you might need a few extra days to work out the mechanics (and we didn’t start on Monday this week). Please have things done as soon as possible.

The topic for this week is to talk about what Visualization is – both in terms of generally, but also what this class is. The first lecture (which is Wednesday) will talk about both Visualization generally, but also about the class to introduce the mechanics. In the second lecture (Friday) we’ll do an “in-class” exercise where you will do a little design as a way to get you thinking about the class topics.

  1. Even though it’s the first week, we’ll still have most of the parts of class. The first Online Discussion and Seek and Find for this week are ready to go. The Quiz might be delayed. Normally, these have strict and regular deadlines. The first week, we’ll start a little more slowly.

Normally, I prefer you at least start the readings before Monday’s lecture. This week, there was no Monday lecture, so try to get to the readings as soon as possible

Readings for Week 1:

The main goal here is to give you a sense of what visualization is. I want you to get some different perspectives, so you can form your own.

Most of these are from textbooks (see the Books page)). A goal is to introduce you to the people you’ll be learning from this semester (including me!). I recommend reading things in this order. If you haven’t read the page about Books for the class, I recommend you do so, since it will give you some context.

  1. What we talk about when we talk about visualization (Chapter 1 of The Truthful Art) (theTruthfulArtCh1.pdf 5.7mb) This will be your first exposure to Alberto Cairo’s books (see my discussion from the Spring of 17). A great place to start the class.
    For a great (but optional) introduction to Cairo’s style and philosophy, read the “Introduction” (which is before chapter 1) (theTruthfulArtCh0.pdf 7.7mb).
  2. What’s Vis (Chapter 1 from Munzner’s Visualization Analysis & Design) (Munzner-01-Intro.pdf 0.3mb). This is the main textbook of the class, and is important to get the main ideas.
  3. My “What is Vis” posting (What is Visualization?) – which may be redundant with the first lecture. It is strongly based on Munzner.
  4. Two Blog Postings by Robert Kosara: What is Visualization? A Definition and The Many Names of Visualization – read these to get a viewpoint different than mine.

In addition to all this, you should look over the course web to understand things like course policies.

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