Weeks in Vis

This is a list of the weekly postings explaning what is going on in class.

The Week in Vis 15 (Mon, Dec 7-Fri, Dec 11): Presenting the End

in Weeks in Vis

This should be the last week in Vis announcement for the year. Wednesday is the last day of class. We’ve gotten to the end.

One last lecture. I’ll put together two things:

  1. I’ll talk about presentations. Usually, it’s a free form, interactive rant. I have no idea how that will work online. I’ve been told its useful. I may try to update it to talk about the weirdnesses of online presentations. I suspect they aren’t going away. There is some “reading” Readings 15: Presentations.

  2. I’ll try to do some “summary” to try to tie things together.

There will be a survey. This time, its mainly to help me. Yes, I know that you are doing your course evaluations as well (thank you). But I can really use your answers to help me plan future classes. I am very curious how things worked for you.

There is an online discussion - I’d like you to think about presentations a bit. Think about it before you hear me rant on Wednesday. And a seek and find - because they are hopefully habit by now. While this might be the last one you give to me, I hope you continue to observe examples in the world to learn from.

Of course there’s Design Challenge 3. Yes, the final deadline is a hard deadline. We have to grade things and we need enough time.

Readings 15: Presentations

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The Week in Vis 14 (Mon, Nov 30-Fri, Dec 4): Sci Vis and Uncertainty

in Weeks in Vis

As the semester comes to a close, I find myself with so many things left to do and discuss with the class, but so little time.

We’ll cram two big topics into one week:

  1. Standard Scientific Data Types - Scientific Visualization is a different field than the “information visualization” we’ve been studying. But I want you to at least have the basics.

  2. Uncertainty - this is a “hot topic” right now, and very important in a lot of visualization work (or should be important).

But… since its the end of the semester, and you should be working on DC3, and we’re all a bit burned out from the COVID semester… we’ll have light reading, and we’ll skip online discussion and have a design exercise instead.

Instead of the “usual” online discussion - we’ll have the Dear Data Design Exercise (was Online Discussion 14). There will be no Tuesday required posting, just one required posting for Friday. It’s something that has been a fun in-class exercise over the years, and gives you a chance to reflect on all the design aspects you’ve learned over the semester.

There are DC3: The Tree of Stuff phases due. At this point, we’re mainly checking to make sure that people are making progress.

Other than that, it will be a pretty usual week… Seek and Find, Survey, Lectures, you know the pattern. Now that you’ve gotten used to it, we’ve gotten to the end - this is the last full week.

If you’re wondering what happened to 3D… It was the “loser” in the poll we had a few weeks ago. It was the topic that most people thought we could skip.

Readings 14: Uncertainty and Scientific Visualization

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The Week in Vis 13 (Mon, Nov 23-Fri, Nov 27): Evaluation

in Weeks in Vis

It’s (American) Thanksgiving week. In terms of class, this means no lecture on Friday, and, in general, a reduced week. We’ll only have one required posting. Seek and Find 13 is cancelled.

But the topic is a big one: Evaluation. How do we know that our visualization is good? Normally, I put this at the beginning of class, so we can use the ideas as we go through things. Evaluation shouldn’t be an afterthought: it should be core to our thinking about visualization.

We’ll have a lecture Wednesday. And Readings 13: Evaluation - which is a relatively big reading. These are particularly worthwhile - important stuff. The readings in the last weeks are light.

In these weeks, we will have “exercises” (due on Mondays). The Graph Exercise (due Monday, November 23) is about last week’s material. The Eval Exercise is due the following week - it’s a short thing to help you think about Munzner’s nested model (which is a big deal)!

Of course, DC3: The Tree of Stuff is going on. While the initial deadlines don’t ask you to do much (other than confirm you are working on it), the actual deadlines are coming up fast.

Readings 13: Evaluation

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The Week in Vis 12 (Mon, Nov 16-Fri, Nov 20): Graphs

in Weeks in Vis

Now we switch gears from the low level (perception) to something more computational.

Graphs (as in “networks” not charts) are a common and important data type (or kind of data type). They have unique challenges and a rich literature. We can spend a whole semester on graphs - but we won’t.

We’ll have a graphs design exercise (details forthcoming), and DC3: The Tree of Stuff is mainly about a specific kind of graph. DC3-1: Project Kickoff (due Mon, Nov 16) and DC3-2: DC3 Survey (due Mon, Nov 23) don’t ask for much - but you might want to get started on the assignment since the end of the semester has a way of coming up fast.

But… this week we’ll have a special guest lecture that probably won’t be about graphs. Prof. Alex Endert from Georgia Tech will talk about interactive systems for analysis. Alex’s group has built many systems - some of them for graphs. But I think his focus will be broader than just graphs.

DC3 is starting up.

Readings 12: Graphs

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The Week in Vis 11 (Mon, Nov 9-Fri, Nov 13): Color

in Weeks in Vis

Another week of perception related topics, this time focusing on color. I used to spend 2 weeks of class discussing color because there is so much to say. We won’t get to talk about everything.

We will, however, have another special guest on Friday: Prof. Danielle Szafir from the University of Colorado. Danielle is Dr. Color. She was also a student in the very first offering of this class! In preparation for her class visit, I’ve included one of her recent papers in the reading list.

DC1-5: Redux (due Mon, Nov 9) is due at the beginning of the week.

Design Challenge 3 ( DC3: The Tree of Stuff) is coming! If you want to do the DC3 Alternate Assignment: Machine Learning, you need to email the Professor to make arrangements before Friday, Nov 13, so you can have a proposal together for Monday, Nov 16. Otherwise, DC3-1: Project Kickoff (due Mon, Nov 16) basically only asks you to confirm that you’ve read the assignment.

My intent was to have another design exercise for this week - but I didn’t get it prepared in time. Expect some more design exercises to be mixed in with class activities over the remaining weeks.

Readings 11: Color

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The Week in Vis 10 (Mon, Nov 2-Fri, Nov 6): Perception

in Weeks in Vis

Now that we’ve returned from the conference, we can move to one of my favorite topics: perception. How we see, and how it influences visualization.

Visual perception is an entire field unto itself. We will just get a few basics of how people see, with a focus on the ramifications for visualization.

In addition to some standard readings, I am asking you to watch a video of a Steve Franconeri talk. Steve is a perceptual scientist who has become interested in visualization. He’ll be a special guest in class on Friday. Watch the talk first - then in class, we’ll apply the ideas to critique visualizations.

  • Don’t forget to vote (if you are a US citizen) on Tuesday.

Readings 10: Perception

There is no design challenge now… expect it soon. First I want to provide feedback on Design Challenge 1.

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The Week in Vis 09 (Mon, Oct 26-Fri, Oct 30): Virtual Vis Week

in Weeks in Vis

This week class is very different. As you hopefully already know from a the first post, and the additional details in [Details about IEEE Vis 2020 for Class](/posts/vis-details/), next week is IEEE Vis2020 (VisWeek). And your assignment is to attend the conference.

All class activities are changed to connect to the conference. See [Details about IEEE Vis 2020 for Class](/posts/vis-details/).

The following week, we’ll return top our normal form of class with a particularly exciting topics (for me): human perception and its impact on Vis. We’ll have a special guest visitor on Friday. There is a good amount of reading for next week, if you want to get started early, see Readings 10: Perception.

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The Week in Vis 08 (Mon, Oct 19-Fri, Oct 23): Interaction

in Weeks in Vis

This week we’ll focus on interaction: it’s something you’ve definitely experienced, but maybe haven’t thought about. We’ll see some common ways of using interaction in visualization, as well as discuss ways to think about interaction. In particular, we’ll consider its costs and benefits.

There is no Design Challenge right now - but there is a design exercise (which has taken over the online discussion).

Looking ahead… Next week is the IEEE Vis Conference, which will “take over” class. Be sure to register (go to the web page and click on the button for the registration “helper” agent). You should expect to do some planning for how you will participate (i.e. pick what you will attend/watch) - however, the schedule isn’t completely posted (as of Oct 15). Expect some guidance and requirements in an upcoming announcement.

Readings 08: Interaction

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The Week in Vis 07 (Mon, Oct 12-Fri, Oct 16): High-Dimensional Data

in Weeks in Vis

This week, we’ll continue our discussion of scale, but turn our attention to issues related to having too many dimensions.

At the beginning of the week, we wrap up Design Challenge 1 - you’ll turn in your final report and peer reviews. So you should be expecting Design Challenge 2 to be starting right away…

But (surprise!) I have decided to cancel Design Challenge 2! (if you’re curious what I had in mind, you can see the draft at DC2: Spaghetti Plots). Expect an announcement of what is happening and why - but basically, we’ll do 2 design challenges and take a little more time to make sure we really capture the lessons from them, rather than rushing through 3.

Readings 07: High-Dimensional Data

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The Week in Vis 06 (Mon, Oct 5-Fri, Oct 9): Scale

in Weeks in Vis

This week’s topic is “Too Much Stuff” - what do we do as our data gets big? Scale is a fundamental challenge in visualization. We’ll learn some categories of strategies and how to apply them in our designs. Design Challenge 1 (DC1): One dataset / Four Stories wraps up, and we’re trying to do an “in-class design exercise” as an online, asynchronous activity.

Readings 06: Scale - are unusual because it has you pick some of the readings, and has things that are more of a “doing” than a reading.

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The Week in Vis 05 (Mon, Sep 28-Fri, Oct 2): Implementation

in Weeks in Vis

This is an unusual week. The topic, implementation, is unusual. While I’d like everyone to have a sense of the range of tools, and how you might select among them. But I don’t expect you to learn any specific tool (or more to the point, I don’t expect everyone to learn about the same tool).

This week is also special since we’ll have a guest lecture on Wednesday: Prof. Dominik Moritz from CMU (and Apple and Washington before that). In addition to being an expert on Vis implementation, he is a great speaker.

Readings 05: Implementation - are unusual because it has you pick some of the readings, and has things that are more of a “doing” than a reading.

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The Week in Vis 04 (Mon, Sep 21-Fri, Sep 25): Encoding

in Weeks in Vis

This week, we’ll talk about encodings: the ways that we connect data to visual elements (so that they address tasks). These are the building blocks that we will use to create visualization (and decompose visualizations into for analysis).

Readings 04: Encoding - will point out the basics of encodings, and give you a first entry point to the literature on how to choose them.

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