Class Meetings
12.
Concluding Thoughts 3 Dec 2013
"So long and thanks for all the fish." CS1501 finally comes to a conclusion. This brief slide deck includes some course statistics that were presented following the Final Design Symposium. Thanks for following along!
11.
Final Aesthetic Considerations 26 Nov 2013
"Theory and practice of making things look nice." Following requests for extra design assistance this lecture moves back towards design and discussed topics like Gestalt Principles and Visual Hierarchy. A little bit of Raphael code is included as well.
10.
Further Practical Examples 12 Nov 2013
"Getting from 0 to visualization." There's no slides here! This class was an entirely live coding demo.
Extras: Power plants visualization,
Fake power plants dataset,
raphael-min.js
9.
Vector Graphics in Raphael 5 Nov 2013
"A lightweight vector graphics library." CS1501 continues in Week 9 with a look into the world of Raphael, an excellent JavaScript library for drawing vector graphics. Lecture 9 starts with the basics then swiftly transitions into writing your own customizable bar-chart generator. Fun!
Extras: Bar chart generator,
Raphael interactivity example,
Raphael example page,
raphael-min.js
8.
Getting To Know Vector Graphics 29 Oct 2013
"The building blocks of your soon-to-be visualizations." Learn the difference between Raster and Vector images and get started with SVG. Lecture 8 goes over the basics of vector graphics in order to prepare students for future image rendering endeavours.
Extras: SVG example page,
Blank Raphael page,
raphael-min.js
7.
Beginning With JavaScript 22 Oct 2013
"A friendly crash course in a friendly language." This week we switch gears and start diving into the world of code. This lecture touches upon a number of JavaScript concepts to help get you on your feet with this exciting scripting language.
6.
Evaluation and Integrity 8 Oct 2013
"Graphics, lies, and interpretation." Lecture 6 is the last in this course's discussion of data visualization theory--it describes how visualization is used to lie, design principles with integrity, how to quantitatively evaluate visualizations, and the psychology of how we interpret different visual phenomena.
5.
Data Ink 1 Oct 2013
"Brevity and the soul of visualization." Now that we've learned what goes into graphs, this lecture discusses optimization: when and how to utilize the ink on your page for communication of data. Learn how to redesign and remove parts of images in order to make them more effective.
4.
Communication Design 24 Sept 2013
"Images that speak for themselves." Learn about the use of symbols in design and how we interpret them. As an offshoot of the HCI and Design disciplines, this lecture investigates affordances, cultural constraints, and mapping as they apply to data graphics.
3.
Chartjunk 17 Sept 2013
"Where design and function part ways." A natural follow up to the design principles of Graphical Excellence, Chartjunk are those elements of design that clutter charts and add extraneous cognitive load to the equation. Learn about how to identify chartjunk and ways to avoid it in your design!
2.
Graphical Excellence 10 Sept 2013
"The whole and the sum of its parts." Explore the history of data graphics and learn what it is that makes them profound. Graphical Excellence teaches a series of criteria and design principles all graphics should strive to meet.
1.
Introduction To Visualization 3 Sept 2013
"The midpoint between art and engineering." This first lecture describes the layout of the class, the course goals, and provides a couple of tragic, yet inspiring, real world examples demonstrating the importance of Data Visualization in technical and non-technical fields.
