Data Assignment 1: Rubric and Critiques

by Alper Sarikaya on March 17, 2015

Turn-in link: Critique via Google Form (do this three times!)

Due date: Wednesday, March 25th, 11:59pm

Stories Overview (new 3/19): the Four Stories Overview… by popular demand, get a look at everyone’s story through image thumbnails and even select the particular dataset used!

This is a clarification post for the critique part of Data Assignment 1.

Similar to the previous design challenge, for the critique portion of the assignment we would like you to to evaluate the stories of at least three of your peers.  Stories will be combined into a single PDF and will be anonymized with a two-digit identifier and placed in Box here.  You will submit these critiques via a Google form, denoting the randomized identifier and your critique and evaluation, helped the rubric below.  After all critiques are submitted, we will distribute the critiques to the authors, again via e-mail.

We will send everyone an e-mail (to their wisc e-mail address) with their three assigned IDs, and a few optional assignments on Thursday afternoon. Use these IDs to critique those critiques in the anonymized Box folder of stories. Please fill out the critique via the Google Form for each assigned design.  You are more than welcome to submit critiques for more than three designs.

We will try to make an associated webpage that shows a visual summary of everyone’s story to give an idea of the variety and diversity of stories.

The Data Assignment Rubric

We thought it would be helpful to have some sort of guidance when constructing your stories and critiquing others’ stories.  In your critiques for a particular set of stories, you do not need to critique each story in detail.

Respond to (#1) below on an aggregate basis, and pick your favorite story/visualization to tailor your answers for #2-4 (and any aggregate observations that are relevant).  Be sure to make clear which individual story you choose when writing your critique for questions 2-4.

1. How good/interesting are the “stories” that you chose? Were a diverse set of stories chosen?

2. Are the things shown multi-variate?

3. How well chosen are the encodings? Are they effective at communicating the message?

4. How well “implemented” are the designs? Are the specific detail choices made thoughtfully?

We recommend that you write your answers first, and then copy them into the web-form so that you don’t lose your work if there’s a web problem while typing.

Similar to the previous critiquing exercise, we’d like you to assign a score for the four stories (based on the rubric above).

Irene’s Rules of Critique

It’s definitely helpful to have a reminder!  It is easy to pounce on someone’s work, but it takes quite careful thought to leave an actionable and effective critique.  Thanks again to Irene Rae.

  1. Know the purpose of the work
  2. Say something good
  3. Be specific about problems
  4. Don’t dictate
  5. It’s about the work, not the person

Grading

We will grade your critiques. Each of your critiques will be scores on the same scale we use for discussions. If you submit more than 3, we will pick the highest 3.

These critiques will also be used in the process of grading the designs under critique.

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