Seek and Find 3: Non-Standard Designs

by Mike Gleicher on January 25, 2015

Due date: before Thursday, February 5 (that means Wednesdsay, Feb 4, 11:59pm)

Turn-in link: Discussion on Canvas

In this seek and find, you are tasked with finding an example of where a designer has used a non-standard design to enable the viewer to do some task.

It’s hard to define what “non-standard” design is. You’ll know it when you see it. But, if you’re stuck, it’s OK if it’s a design where there is another common way that you’d seen data of the same kind presented. (data abstraction at work!)

Read through the reading assignment (Reading Assignment 5) – you should read the assignment before doing this one. You don’t necessarily need to do the readings before doing this seek and find.

As usual, post:

  1. A picture
  2. A link to it in context
  3. A description of what it is
  4. A brief discussion of its non-standardness: What would a more common presentation of the data be? What was the task that this was designed for? (that this design might be trying to do – or in other words, what was the excuse for needing a non-standard design)

You’ll turn this in as a posting in a discussion on Canvas.

If you want a good example (sorry, I found this one, you need to find another) is: http://policyviz.com/a-simple-remake-for-a-simple-chart/ – although, (spoiler alert) it’s less clear what task the redesign is better for. That’s an example we might use in class.

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