Discussion and Assignment

Discussion :

 

“Why do we need to understand data visualisations? There is more and more data around us, and data are increasingly used in decision-making, journalism, and to make sense of the world. One of the main ways that people get access to data is through visualisations, but lots of people feel like they don’t have the skills and knowledge to make sense of visualisations. This can mean that some people feel left out of conversations about data.” –

Developing Visualisation Literacy

Please conduct the following activity located at the following address:

http://seeingdata.org/developing-visualisation-literacy/rate-these-visualisations/

Tell us what you think of the visualisations that we used in our focus group research. Instructions below!

What to do

1. Look at the visualisations by clicking on the images below. You can choose to open the visualisation in a NEW tab or window (we recommend this) or view it in a pop-up window if you prefer to stay on this page. Some are interactive (i) and some are static (s).
2. Place the images on the grid. When you’ve looked at one, go to the grid and position the image according to whether you liked or didn’t like and learned or didn’t learn something from the visualisation (‘learning something’ could also mean confirming something you already knew). Only place the visualisations that you have looked at onto the grid. Click SUBMIT.
3. Compare your views with others. You can compare your responses to the visualisations with those of others, by clicking COMPARE.

Choose three of your favorite visualisations. Post a 3 – 5 sentence summary of why you chose the visualisations. What caught your attention? Were they effective in presenting the provided data? If possible, explain how you would you do to improve the visualization?
Assignment:

 

FORENSIC DESIGN ASSESSMENTS

This task relates to a sequence of assessments that will be repeated across Chapters 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10. Select any example of a visualisation or infographic, maybe your own work or that of others. The task is to undertake a deep, detailed ‘forensic’ like assessment of the design choices made across each of the five layers of the chosen visualisation’s anatomy. In each case your assessment is only concerned with one design layer at a time.

For this task, take a close look at the interactivity choices:

1. Start by identifying all the interactive features deployed, listing them under the headers of either data or presentation adjustments
2. How suitable are the choices and deployment of these interactive features? If they are not, what do you think they should have been?
3. Go through the set of ‘Influencing factors’ from the latter section of the book’s chapter to help shape your assessment and to possibly inform how you might tackle this design layer differently
4. Also, considering the range of potential interactive features and functions, what would you do differently or additionally?

Assignment Link: http://book.visualisingdata.com/chapter/chapter-7