Week 1

  • Sign-in
  • Assessment of student skills, levels, and interests
    • What do you want to learn in this class?
    • What sorts of data/information graphics work have you done previously?
    • Any coding or stats experience?
  • Introduction to course goals and expectations
  • Intro talk
  • Exercise: Catalog & Classify
    • Create and publish a new post with your visualization type as its title. Assign it the tag “Catalog & Classify” in the gear menu.
    • Describe your chosen visualization type in terms of the kinds of values it represents (e.g., fractions, integers, percentages, etc.) and the sorts of comparisons it enables or discourages.
    • Explain what types of calculations need to occur to go from the raw data to the ink/pixels in the resultant chart (for instance, do you need to add up all the values then plot them based on their proportion of the whole? or find the minimum and maximum value to establish the endpoints of an axis?)
    • Explain the ‘mapping’ by which numerical/categorical/etc values are converted into positions, sizes, colors, textures, etc. If the chart is primarily about using size to show values (as in, say, a bar chart), can it still use other features such as color to communicate other pieces of information? How?
    • Search the web for examples of your chart type in use. Include 3 images demonstrating ‘good’ uses and 3 more with ‘bad’ uses of this visualization type. Add a caption to each image describing what makes it good or bad.
    • Consult the Ghost Editor Overview to help you format your text & images.

Assignment

  • Catalog & Classify
    • Complete your post about your chosen visualization type and be prepared to talk about it next time
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