Did we really have a week with no new postings to the website? (well, there was a posting about the Excel walk-thru, but it wasn’t on the news page. And there are some things going on in Piazza)
In class this week, we talked about encodings – the basic building blocks of visualizations. Even if I use different terminology than the book, they are the important connection between data and design. We also saw how to use Excel to do far more Data Analysis than I thought it could – which will be really handy for getting an initial grasp on your Data for the Design Challenge. We had more practice with doing critiques (both on Wednesday and Friday).
This coming week, the topic is perception. While this is normally the land of psychology classes, understanding human perception can be really helpful in designing visualizations. We’ll also continue to help you get started on the Design Challenge.
- Monday, February 27th – “Lecture” on Perception, and the role of experiments in visualization. Please do the reading before class. We’ll also do a “mini” in-class exercise (and maybe finish the one we started on Wednesday). As always, the initial posting for the Discussion Assignment is due.
- Wednesday, March 1st – We’ll get a brief tutorial on Tableau. If you want to follow along, get a Tableau license on your laptop before class. (see the posting, although you can install/use the trial even before you get a license). We’ll also do some more critique practice, and talk about the second part of the reading.
- Friday, March 3rd – Optional Class – Design Challenge discussion. For those interested, we’ll gather in the class room to talk about the Design Challenge and try to help each other make visualizations from the data. And there’s a seek and find.
Of course, none of this should be a surprise if you look at the class schedule, which is complete until break, and decently sketched in after that.
So the things in flight this week:
- The Design Challenge is really happening. The posting still says draft, but the only changes I expect are the links (and details) for turning things in. Even information on the evaluation rubric was posted.
- Reading 7 – Perception 101 – the first part is due Monday (two chapters of Ware to read, and the Healy&Enns paper (at least look at the pictures). If you’re interested, the optional readings are interesting to get beyond the basics (but still at a survey level). The readings for Wednesday will bring the idea of emprical work for visualization to the front.
- Assignment 7 – Perception Discussion – as usual, start a discussion about the topic on Monday, with additional postings through the week.
- Seek and Find 7 – may seem more connected with last week’s topic (and the design challenge), but perception is part of everything.
- The class survey will happen this week – watch the web page for details. Basically, if you give me feedback, I’ll return the favor and give you feedback.