Assignments

The course requires handing in two assignments, each counting 50% towards the final mark. Failing to hand in an assignment at the due date, will lead to penalty points.

Assignments will be marked using the Unversity’s Common Marking Scheme 1.

Keep any descriptions as brief as possible. Use bullet lists wherever possible.

Make sure that you submit any written assignments using your exam number only, and that you state the number of words in your assignment. Your exam number is the number that starts with B on your student card.

Table of contents, figure captions, table captions, and references do not count towards your total number of words.

Assignment 1

This assignment will be introduced and explained in week 3.

Goals:

• Understand how to critique a visualization
• ability to argue with the corresponding knowledge in visualization, and
• propose and sketch respective solutions.

Scope: Individually (one submission per student, through Learn)

Weight towards course grade: 50%

Due date: Wednesday 26. February 2020, 4pm UK time

Expected time investment: 15h

Descripion: Analyze problems with a set of visualizations and propose improvements. 

1. Find two different visualizations (on the internet, in newspapers, TV, etc.) like those in the tutorial. Different means, e.g., a line chart, a network, a map, etc.
   • Explain who made the visualizations and in which context they were shown (Text book, Twitter, News, …)
   • make sure to inlude the exact link to the visualization.
2. For each visualization, describe three faults and why they are problematic.
   • Give the fault a name
   • explain possible implications and misinterpretations.
   • Describe possible improvements for each fault.
   • Make sure to report different faults for each visualiztion, i.e., in total you should report six faults.
3. For each of the two visualization,
   • Create one visualization that solves the identified faults (i.e., two visualizations in total).
   • Make sure to avoid any of the common faults discussed in class and the tutorials.
   • Create the final visualization either digitally (e.g., using any of the tools discussed in class) or by sketching using pen and paper.
   • For each solution you propose, argue how you have fixed a fault from the original visualization.
   • Make sure the message is the same as in the original visualization.

Handing in:

• Submit through Learn.
• Submit a single PDF with as many pages as you like. Words: 500-700
• Include references to any external references (web, papers, slides, etc) in your submission if you need them for your argument.
• You can draw onto the original visualization to highlight faults and problems.
• For the visualizations in #3, you can use any tool and medium you like: pen and paper, digital pens, illustrator, etc.

Marking scheme:

Task	Max-points
Two Visualizations found	4
Faults identified	24
Faults explained	24
Faults fixed	24
Fixes explained	24
Extra points: Creativity of proposed visualization(s)	4
Total:	100

Points will be removed if plagiarism among students is found.

Assignment 2

Scope: In groups of 3 students (one submission per group, through Learn)

Weight towards course grade: 50%

Due date: Friday 3. April 2020, 4pm UK time.

Expected time investment: 15h

Description: Students work in groups of 3 students to analyze, design, and implement a visualization piece. This can include interactive web visualizations, data comics, or an infographic (see below).

1. Challenge description: Describe a challenge around the data (up to 500 words, use bullet points where possible). A challenge includes:

• Data: What is your data and where is it coming from?
• Motivation: What do you intend to see/show with the visualizations?
• Audience: who is the indented audience for this visualization and how are thy characterized?
• Context: what is th context that audience is using your visualization?

How do these issues influence your design choices?

2. Visualization exploration: explore visualization designs for your data and explain your rationale (200 words per visualization = 600 words, use bullet points where possible)

• explore at least three different visualization designs with at least two iteration for your data (e.g., one design per student in the group). Include rough working sketches in the final submission (sketches will not be marked but show your thoughts and the evolution of ideas. Text can be unreadable, data be incomplete. Like the sketches in tutorial 2).
• explain what does and work, what does not work, and how you iterated at each step.

3. Final design: present a final design and explain your design rationale for everything that is not related to the visualization design itself as this has been stated in 2 (e.g., textual annotations, title, abstract, layout, explanations, etc). just above (up to 500 words, use bullet points where possible). This can be on of the following three formats:

• Infographic
  • at least 3 different types of visualizations. These can be self-invented and creative
  • around 400 words on the infographic as text, abstract, story title, and any explanations. These words are not included in the 500 words that describe your rationale.
  • anything format between A3 and A0 (poster, landscape or portrait format)
• Data comic
  • at least 4 A4 pages
  • at least 3 different types of visualizations. These can be self-invented and creative.
  • no word limit, no style restrictions
• Interactive visualization
  • A single bespoke and creative interactive visualization, to some degree self-implemented in D3 or processing, or
• Any other ideas, let me know ASAP and we can discuss.

Make sure you follow the instructions / exercises in tutorial 4. In your story mention:

• what is this data?
• facts about that data
• explain any unfamilar visualizations and data-related concepts
• summarize your main message

4. Feedback report and reflection (up to __500 words): For your final design,

• obtain feedback from at least 3 different persons in a structured interview. Summarize the main points.
• Use the feedback to improve your final design and mention what you did change.

5. Visualiztion tool critique: Pick two visualization tools (does not inlude SVG tools!), e.g., from the ones discussed in class, and discuss (up to 1000 words):

• what’s the overall purpose of this tool?
• the range of visualizations and the quality of its output (e.g., readability, colors, graphics, etc..)
• the general workflow and possible interactions
• which skills are required and what makes it tricky to learn the tool?
• any special useful features
• advantages and things you found useful
• disadvantages and things you found hard
• potential ideas for future features and general improvement
• how each tool supported your design / workflow.

Use bullet points wherever possible.

For Assignment 2, hand in as a single PDF with either

• graphics included, or
• web links (make sure they work and are permanent during the marking period). Learn might have an upload limit.

Marking scheme:

Task	Max-points
Challenge description	20
Visualization exploration	20
Final design	30
Design feedback	10
Tool critique	20
Extra points: Creativity of proposed visualization(s)	4
Total:	100