data visualization
sarc5400
Assignment I

Due - 7pm, Tuesday January 30

the good, the bad, and the ugly

“The Internet and Email, 1990 - - -
The greatest dispersion and intensification of information since the printing of books in Korea and China around 750 and the development of moveable type for printing in 11th century China.

Weaknesses: lack of archival quality, short attention span, low credibility of many documents, low resolution in space and time.” Edward Tufte

As a quick exercise intended to familiarize the class as a whole, and you as an individual, with looking at and assessing information design, you are to find three information visualizations and/or graphics from any source that you will judge and show to the class:

the good — This will be a graphic which you consider to be among the best you have seen. It will be rich, well conceived, well designed, purposeful, and not only understandable, but revealing. Feel free to add other qualities, or to amend these.

the bad — A graphic which you consider to be among the worst — poor content, badly chosen design, no purpose or a purpose not well articulated, etc. With this graphic, you will be asking "what is this graphic about or even here for?"

the ugly — For this most difficult category, you will choose a visualization which could have been great, but fell flat. This will be something with excellent potential — a great idea, an important issue or critical informational content, or just plain interesting — that either hasn't been carried out or was carried out poorly.

There are many sources of information visualizations on the web, but there are also many great diagrams in books (think textbooks), articles in magazines and journals (those explaining more complex concepts or making interesting comparisons as part of an argument), and newspapers. Large journalistic groups and many large corporations have entire departments dedicated to data visualization....

Most of all -- have fun with this assignment!

What to turn in:
1. Three visualizations / graphics. Submit as an image file,screenshot, or link to an interactive visualization, with source citation. Submit individually or as a compiled Word or PDF document, combined with (2) below.
2. A written paragraph or two about each, why you selected it, and what you think about it. Use this to explain what makes this visual successful, effective, good, ... or not.

Upload your work to the Collab site under Assignments.