Week 2

Foundations

Data models, visual encodings, design principles (slides)

Links

NameVoyager
Ayca Akin - Dear Diary
Edward Tufte
Jacques Bertin
Colin Ware
A good series of articles on Gestalt theory
Bobby McFerrin demonstrates the closure law
JunkCharts
They Rule by Josh On

Reading

Read Chapter 1 of Ben Fry's Visualizing Data. You can access the book online through Safari (link on the resources page)

Assignment 1: Many Eyes

This assignment has two parts:

• Part 1 (4 points): pick a dataset on Many Eyes that already has at least one visualization and create a different visualization of that same data. Is your version better? Worse? Why? Write a short explanation (about one paragraph)


• Part 2 (6 points): either a) create your own dataset by importing some data into Many Eyes or b) find an unvisualized dataset. Create a visualization of that data and explain why you picked the data and why you decided to use this particular visualization type. Did you discover any pattern in the data?

You should familiarize yourself with the different visualizations types Many Eyes has to offer.

To submit the assignment, create a page on your website with your two explanations and links to your visualizations

This is due next week

Here are some data sources to get you started:
UN Data
World Health Organization
Google (of course)