CS 7295, DS 4200: Data Visualization, Special Topics Course / Information Visualization

Syllabus

Spring 2021

Instructor: John Alexis Guerra Gómez

Description

The purpose of Data Visualization is to discover insights from data, not just produce pretty pictures. In this course we will cover both the theory behind producing insightful data visualizations, as well as the practical components on how to create them. At the end of this course you will be able to:

Design efficient and insightful data visualizations based on perception theories and best practices from the research community.
Implement insightful and interactive, could based data visualizations using D3, Vega-Lite or Tableau.
Use a systematic approach for abstracting data analysis and visualization problems based on what and why is being visualized, and how is being represented. This will allow you to choose the right visualization for the tasks and data at hand beyond simple subjective rules of thumb.
Judge data visualizations based on their ability to help the target users address the proposed tasks on the data.
Conduct basic usability experiments to evaluate the value of a visualization with real users.
Work with real world clients on real world data problems to help them generate insights

Weekly Schedule

Week	Date	Topic	Practice	Homeworks	Final Project
1	01/21	Class welcome and logistics
2	01/28	Introduction Readings: CH1 VAD	Intro to Observable, and data in JS
3	02/04	What we visualize Readings: CH2 VAD	Loading data for visualization
4	02/11	Why we visualize Readings: CH3 VAD	Arquero.js and Basic Visualizations with Vega-Lite API	HW1 Reusing the community visualizations
5	02/18	How we visualize Readings: CH5 VAD	Interactivity
6	02/25	Rules of thumb Readings: CH6 VAD	Tableau	HW2 Basic Vega-Lite Viz
7	03/04	Midterm recap
8	03/11	Tabular, Multidimensional Data Readings: CH7 VAD	Arquero.js	HW2.1 (Optional) Midterm make up points
9	03/18	Temporal Data	D3 Temporal Data	HW3 Multidimensional data	Select team and topic
10	03/25	Networks and Color Readings: CH9 and CH10 VAD	D3 Force Simulation	HW4 Temporal	Initial proposal (15%)
11	04/01	Trees and Geo Readings: CH8-10 VAD	D3 Trees and Spatial Data
12	04/08	Manipulating Views Readings: CH11 VAD Faceting Readings: CH12 VAD		HW5 Trees and Networks
13	04/15	Evaluation Reducing Advanced Readings: CH10-14 VAD	Usability experiment
14	04/22				Project progress checkpoint: Usability Study Result (25%) Project report and presentation (20%)
Finals	04/29				Project presentation/Blog/Demo (40%)

Slack Workspace infovis-neu.slack.com

All the class' messages are going to be sent using our Slack workspace. Students are encouraged to use slack to ask questions, coordinate and collaborate. Some guidelines:

Use #general for general issues, questions etc.
Use #project for proposing projects and requesting approval. All projects must be approved by the teacher.
Only the teaching assistants and the professor should create threads on #announcements. This channel is used for major announcements.
Use #random for sharing random stuff.

Videos and Lectures

For previous iterations of this course I have pre-recorded more than 60 technical videos where I show how to go from the theory concepts to actual visualizations using D3, the Vega-Lite API and Tableau.

There are also some recordings (in Spanish) of previous lectures

Grading

Concept	%
Participation	10%
Midterm	20%
Final project Call for proposals Call for proposals Submit a project proposal	40%
Homeworks	30%