Project Showcase

Thanks again everyone for your hard work during the semester. The fourteen final projects are once again proof that Information Visualization is inherently interdisciplinary, and as such a field where I Schoolers can shine.

I posted a page with the links to your visualizations along with your short descriptions.

Project Deliverables

As a reminder, here are the deliverables for the visualization project, which are all due on May 6th:

  • Writeup, including but not limited to:
    • Competitive analysis
    • Sketches
    • Iteration artifacts
    • Rationale for design decisions
  • Link to the visualization online

Project Showcase

As announced earlier in the semester you will have the opportunity to show off your visualization project at the Information Visualization Showcase. The showcase is mandatory for all teams. It will be during regular class time (5-8PM) on May 8. Feel free to invite guests, as the presentations are open for the public.

Since there are 14 projects, we will have to keep an eye on time. You have 10 minutes to present plus 2 minutes for Q&A. Use the time to introduce your project, show iteration artifacts and demo the visualization. If you are using slides, send me a PDF along with your other deliverables.

Please also send me as soon as possible

  • 1 paragraph describing your project
  • Your project title/name

Learning from the NY Times

By now you all are working on first iterations of your semester visualization project. This blog post by Andy Kirk of visualizingdata.com could come in handy as a brief reality check. In it, he explains what makes NY Times infographics what they are–some of the most effective visualizations out there. Almost every point applies directly to your project. Gloss over it and try to see how your visualization can be improved with the 10 points in mind.

Project Proposals

This is a friendly reminder that the final project proposals are due tomorrow, March 20, before class. The proposals should include

  • 1-2 pages
  • Who is in your team
  • The topic for your visualization
  • Everything you already know: Datasets, target users etc
  • 2 examples from competitive analysis

Introduction to D3

My company organized a visualization meetup last week with the title “Introduction to D3”. If you’re interested to learn more about D3, check out the videos on our blog. The first talk was by Joe Golike who comes from a design background. The folks among you who are not proficient coders might enjoy his take on learning D3. After that, Vadim Ogievsky gave a code intro to D3, similar to what I did in last week’s lab, but a little more extensively.

Visualization Contests

Thanks to the person who sent me the link to the a visualization contest. There’s at least one other visualization contest running. I’m just posting the links here. If you want to get your hands dirty visualizing a dataset outside of the constraints of the class, I’d recommend you take a look at them:

Material Lecture 5 / Readings Lecture 6

I posted some material to the page for today’s lecture:

  • Slides
  • Great introduction and tutorial of D3.js
Also, the readings for lecture 6 are posted. One of the required readings is a video by next week’s guest lecturer Geoff McGhee. It’s a bit over a year old. Because the industry moves quickly, it’s not 100% current anymore, but it’s still worth your time to watch it.