Assignments and Grading
There are 4 assignments in this course. Submissions and discussions are put on the course wiki.
- Assignment 1 [10%]: find and critique two examples of visualization in practice. Presentations take place Weeks 3 and 4 on Thursdays.
- Assignment Two [20%] : Research paper review. requires a presentation. Due: when your scheduled date is. Remember: you need to choose a date by Sept. 24, or I will schedule you one.
- Assignment Three: [10%]. Choose a visualization from Assignment 1 from another of your classmates.Redesign it according to the perceptual and display lessons we have learned. Do you agree with your classmate's judgement? Presentation in class. Due: TBD.
- Course Project. [60%.]
Notes on scheduling: If you present your Assignment 1 earlier with respect to your colleagues, you will get to present other assignments later than they do later on!
Assignment 1: Critiquing Visualisation in Practice
The use of visualization is pervasive in the media: explanatory diagrams in magazines, graphs describing the projected impact of a new state budget, new experimental data plotted against theoretical expectations, etc. In each case, the author of the visualization tries to convey a point of view by emphasizing some aspects of the data while toning down other aspects. The result can vary widely, from informative to misleading.
For this assignment, pick out two examples, one good and one bad visualization, from any of the following sources:
- Textbook
Journal (Journal of Applied Optics, ...)
Science magazine (Nature, Science, Scientific American, ...)
News Magazine or newspaper (Newsweek, The Economist, NY Times, USA Today, ...)
No information visualization text or paper may be used. Go to original sources used by practitioners and researchers. The following domains provide good examples:
- Mathematics
- Physical sciences (astronomy, physics, chemistry, etc.)
- Biological sciences (ecology, medicine, bioinformatics, etc.)
- Social sciences (economics, crime statistics, etc.)
- Business/economics
Once you have selected a good and a bad example, make a wiki page on the course wiki. Include in your page both pictures, and two paragraphs for each picture. The first paragraph should tell the story behind the picture: what does this picture show? The second paragraph should critique the visualization, explaining why you think it is good or bad. Be specific, and include criteria such as accessibility, clarity, accuracy, or any other criterion about the design of the visualization that you feel is important. You can look at Tamara Munzner's UBC InfoVIs class assignments for examples.
Assignment inspired by Pat Hanrahan (Stanford) and Tamara Munzner (UBC).
Assignment 2: Research Topics in Visualisation
This assignment entails a 8-10 page paper and a 15 minute presentation. This is a critical précis of a recent research paper that addresses a visualization problem. You are expected to describe the problem(s) identified by the authors, why they took the approach they did, and what the outcomes were. Your critique of the paper should cover the techniques used to address the problem, and what aspects of the approach were successful or unsuccessful. In addition, propose 2 questions for discussion by the class.
Presentations begin Oct 21, in class.
Resources
Here are some good sources:
* The Journal of Information Visualization;
* IEEE Transactions on Visualization and COmputer Graphics
* Conference proceedings for Information Visualization, Visualization (both IEEE)
* Proceedings of Visual Analytics Symposium
* Advanced Visual Interfaces (AVI)
* Proceedings of EuroVis (some of these are hard to find)
Many of these are in the ACM Digital Library and IEEE Xplore (in the library onliune databases).
Here is an example of a research presentation.
Assignment 3: Redesign
Choose a visualization from Assignment 1 from another of your classmates and redesign it to better serve the purpose and the audience for which you think it is intended. Note the terminology: you can decide that a visualization is better for an audience beyond the originally discussed one. Justify your redesign according to the design and perceptual principles we have been covering in the course. You may choose either a "good" visualisation or a "bad" one (your opinion on these may be different from the original presenter!) As in Assignment 1, short write-up on the wiki and presentation in class.
Course Project [60%]: presentations start week 12, due in week 14.
This can be either a group or an individual project.
You are asked to identify a visualization problem and address a solution. This can take several forms:
- Identify a problem and apply the principles of visualization science to design and implement a solution. The solution should be evaluated.
- Identify a problem, research and discuss the underlying principles involved in developing a solution and write a detailed description of the proposed solution. Although a complete solution is not implemented, feasibility tests should be conducted for key components.
- Identify an unsolved problem in visualization research and write a paper describing how the principles of visualization science can be applied to answer the research questions.
- Identify a visualization solution that is available and conduct a series of principled experiments to evaluate the effectiveness of the solution.
- Propose some other framework, but it must involve the careful application of the principles of visualization science.
Deadlines:
- Submission of project title and brief (100 word) abstract: 04.02.2009
- Presentation: starting in week 13 (2.12.2009)
- Submission of final project paper: end of term (14.12.2009)