data visualization
sarc5400
Assignment III

Due - Noon, Tuesday March 1, 2016

Having surveyed information graphics (assignment 1) and then built one on your own (assignment 2) we now embark on more critically analyzing information visualization for specific approach, technique and effectiveness at conveying information on a specific problem or question. We're also starting to use some of the many data-driven visualization tools that are out there, and asking how they can be useful and what their limitations are.

For this assignment, you are to choose a dataset of your liking and produce three (3) prototype visualizations of it or some component of it, each using a different technique and/or tool. Through this, you are to critically compare the techniques and results of your three visuals for approach and effectiveness at exploring the dataset and contributing insight into the problem presented by the data.

1. To explore the various "standard" tools and techniques that are out there amidst the available tools.
2. To use these techniques to analyze graphical, structural, organizational, and representational approaches for their strengths and weaknesses at gaining insight into information.

All three of your visuals should be built upon the same dataset, and all three should take a very different visual or organizational approach.

These visuals will all be "rough", or "works-in-progress". They are not intended to be fully polished, final-presentation work. Each should be complete enough, though, to show something useful, and perhaps insightful, about the data and about the questions that you are asking about that data. DO NOT simply dump the output of the tool to the screen and go. Extract or download it (SVG, PDF), arrange, annotate, and amend the output into a visual that you consider to be complete. This may require work outside of the tool, likely in Illustrator. The tool is a starting point and a lens into the data, that you can then refine.

• What issue or information set does this visualization cover?
• What specific problem or question is it / are you trying to resolve?
  

• What specific investigational goals do you have?
• What specific techniques are used to achieve those goals? Consider the types and strategies that we've been discussing. Use our discussions of Cognitive Load Theory, chuncking, schema development, split attention, and more. Use Tufte's `Escaping Flatland` and `Grand Principles`.
• How appropriate are these strategies to the question and the data?
• How effective are these strategies at revealing, organizing, or comparing, and increasing your understanding of the issue(s)?

• Specifically, did you discover something about the question? Did you find new insight?
• Why? How did your visual / organizational technique help?

• What could be done better to make your understanding of the issue more complete, or improve a broader understanding of the problem?
• Critique the tool and the strategy!

For this exercise, content is important, but the spatial/graphical/cognitive techniques used are more important. Pick these techniques apart, and critique how design specifically furthers content. This is not about how to nicely display data, but rather how different graphic strategies help (or hinder) us to analyze.

Comment on specific graphical techniques and the challenges faced by them. These things are not always straightforward. As you've been learning, it is easy to critique, but much harder to actually `do`.

Remember - no visualization is perfect, and most are works-in-progress. Ask a question!

Consider this an exercise in visual prototyping. These tools are relatively quick, so experiment, explore, and iterate. They're built to do this.

1. Your set of visualizations, as a PDF or set of PDFs. You could combine on one page, or split out separately.
2. A written analysis and commentary on your selected tools, techniques, and critiques, given the questions above.

As usual, we will review your analyses collectively in class, and through peer review.