Design Challenge 1 Updates…

by Mike Gleicher on March 15, 2017

Almost everyone has turned in the assignment.

For those of you who were just minutes late, it isn’t a big deal (although, you did have weeks).

However: in looking at the first few, I see there was something that was not clear in the instructions. We will give people a chance to correct it. (it’s small)

Here is the bad paragraph from the assignment (emphasis added by me):

For each visualization, there should be a good caption, explaining the data and enough of the story. Although, if your graph is really great, the reader might figure out the story without reading the caption. Please do not put your name inside the PDF (so that we can send them out for anonymous critique). The PDFs should be 1 page each. it should be clear from the visualization and/or caption what data set it is. Turn in a 6th document that explains how you made the pictures, and what you were trying to show with each one. These will be turned in as an assignment on Canvas.

We asked for your captions to explain what the story is that the viewer supposed to see. There is a hazy line between explaining what the graph was meant to be about (i.e., what question) and telling the answer directly.

Peer reviews will be asked to evaluate “Does the visualization address/answer the question effectively” – so they need to know what question the designer had in mind.

For many of you, this is in the documentation file – but since the documentation file is (almost always) not anonymous – so we can’t give it out for peer review.

So… we are giving you the option to address this issue. You may either:

  1. (not recommended option) Redo your pictures with better captions (and turn them in again) – we ask for your honesty in not changing your pictures.
  2. Add an extra file with the captions / questions for each picture that doesn’t have your name on it. For many of you, this is just making an anonymized version ofthe notes file you turned in (with less detail).
  3. Be proud that you were able to guess what I meant when I made the assignment.

If you want to update your assignment, you may do so – either on Canvas, or by sending the new “extra file” to the TA (copies to both of them by email). If you turned things in before this morning, we know it, and adding this extra information will not be held against you.

Note that this is not a big deal: when we grade, we have access to your extra file and can see your descriptions there. But you might want to do this for the benefit of your peer reviewers, or add the extra questions if you don’t feel your descriptions convey them well.

You must do this before we send the files out for peer review. This is a hard deadline. To be safe, do it before 10am, Thursday, March 16th (since we’re likely to start sometime around then). If you’re brave, you can try it after that, but if we start on time, you might lose out.

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