In this course, you will learn how, and why, to create data visualizations.
A “visualization” is simply a visual representation of an object of our interest. It’s visual: we consume them with our eyes, and so it is essential that we know how our eyes work — and, more importantly, the parts of our brains connected to our eyes. It’s also a representation; we get to choose what this representation will be, and different choices lead to different pictures, some good and some bad. We will learn how to tell those apart, and how to make pictures that are more good than bad.
Good data visualization involves perceptual psychology, mathematics, and computer science. This makes our subject uniquely challenging: sometimes the way our eyes work stands in way of applying some beautiful result from computer science. Sometimes it’s the other way around: something deep about the math in the data will help guide the design process and let us make a picture that is beautiful, informative, and truthful.
The content of the course is split roughly in three distinct aspects: mechanics, principles, and techniques.
Although there are no specific prerequisites to this regard, we will write most of our code using the web stack. This means we are targeting modern web browsers, and writing our programs in a combination of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. If you don’t know these technologies, you will be expected to learn them.
None.
Lectures, individual projects and assignments, in-class discussions.
Principles: You will learn about perceptual psychology, and how it constrains the ways in which we design algorithms for displaying data effectively and efficiently.
Mechanics: You will learn how the modern web stack enables performant and portable data visualization programs. You will learn to use some of the most popular data visualization libraries, you will learn how they are implemented, and their limitations.
Techniques: You will learn the fundamental algorithms behind many of the techniques created to display data effectively.
The UA’s policy concerning Class Attendance, Participation, and Administrative Drops is available here. The UA policy regarding absences for any sincerely held religious belief, observance or practice will be accommodated where reasonable. Absences pre approved by the UA Dean of Students (or dean’s designee) will be honored. See the dean of students’s website for details.
If you register late for this class, contact me as soon as you do. You will be expected to submit all missed assignments within a week of your registration. It is your responsibility to catch up to the class content.
We will use Piazza for communications and discussion.
There is no required textbook for the course, and all of the necessary material will be available in slides and lecture notes, but Tamara Munzner’s book is really good reading if you’re interested in visualization.
I have a copy I intend to keep in my office at all times, in case you want to browse it before deciding to buy it. Other excellent books I recommend include (again, ask me to take a look at them if you’re curious):
If you want to dive deeper into visualization, you should have read, at least once, the following books:
We will also be reading content from some web pages and some research papers. When you’re expected to read material ahead of time, the material will be posted on the course web page at least one week in advance, and will be discussed in class.
There will be one individual comprehensive final project.
For the final project, you will do either of the following:
build one larger visualization of your own choosing, using the mechanics, principles and techniques you learn in this course, and will be graded to the extent in which your visualization respects these. Each student can expect to spend about as much time on the final project as they will on all assignments, combined.
work on a research-oriented project of your own choosing, as long as it:
1) involves visualization
2) is a concrete and significant step towards a research paper, either about using data visualization in your area of research, or a visualization research paper itself.
A successful final project does not have to be a finished paper, but the clearer it is how to take what you have and turn it into a reasonable submission to a workshop, conference, or journal, the better.
I will grade your assignments, midterms, and final project on a scale from 0 to 100, with respective weights of 50%, 20% and 30%. In addition, I will give class participation 5% weight. This will give you a score from 0 to 105. Your final grade in the course of be the best of a per-class grading curve and overall performance:
Overall performance:
Grades for assignments, midterm and final project will be posted on D2L as soon as we have them. Grades for assignments will be posted no more than 2 weeks after each the deadline for each assignment.
Requests for incomplete (I) or withdrawal (W) must be made in accordance with University policies, which are available at http://catalog.arizona.edu/policy/grades-and-grading-system#incomplete and http://catalog.arizona.edu/policy/grades-and-grading-system#Withdrawal, respectively.
If you wish to dispute your grade for an assignment, midterm or project, you have two weeks after the grade has been turned in. In addition, even if only you dispute one portion of the grading for that unit, I reserve the right to revisit the entire unit (assignment, midterm, or project).
| Intro | Aug 21 | Introduction | Assignment 1 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Aug 23 | |||
| Mechanics | Aug 28 | HTML/CSS/SVG Basics | |
| Aug 30 | JavaScript, DOM | Assignment 1 due | |
| Sep 4 | Labor day, no classes | ||
| Sep 6 | d3 | no slides | |
| Sep 11 | d3 | no slides | |
| Principles | Sep 13 | Scales of measurement, invariants | |
| Sep 18 | Color Vision | ||
| Sep 20 | Other Channels | ||
| Sep 25 | Informed critique, visualization design process | ||
| Sep 27 | Algebraic Design Process | ||
| Oct 2 | Interaction | ||
| Oct 4 | IEEE VIS 2017 - class canceled | ||
| Techniques | Oct 9 | Scalability in Linked Views and Visual Querying | |
| Oct 11 | Scatterplots, line plots, small multiples | ||
| Oct 16 | Histograms, KDE | ||
| Oct 18 | Choropleths, heatmaps | ||
| Oct 23 | MIDTERM | ||
| Oct 25 | 2D Isocontours | ||
| Oct 30 | 2D Vector Fields, streamlines | LAST DAY TO DROP | |
| Nov 1 | 3D Scalar Fields: isosurfacing | ||
| Nov 6 | |||
| Nov 8 | 3D Scalar Fields: Direct volume rendering | ||
| Nov 13 | |||
| Nov 15 | Principal Component Analysis, Grand Tour | ||
| Nov 20 | Multidimensional Scaling | ||
| Nov 22 | Isomap and LLE | ||
| Nov 27 | t-SNE | ||
| Nov 29 | Basics of hierarchies and networks | ||
| Dec 4 | force-directed placements, metric embeddings | ||
| Dec 6 |
|—-|—|—–|—-|
The Department of Computer Science is committed to providing and maintaining a supportive educational environment for all. We strive to be welcoming and inclusive, respect privacy and confidentiality, behave respectfully and courteously, and practice intellectual honesty. Disruptive behaviors (such as physical or emotional harassment, dismissive attitudes, and abuse of department resources) will not be tolerated. The complete Code of Conduct is available on our department web site. We expect that you will adhere to this code, as well as the UA Student Code of Conduct, while you are a member of this class.
To foster a positive learning environment, students and instructors have a shared responsibility. We want a safe, welcoming, and inclusive environment where all of us feel comfortable with each other and where we can challenge ourselves to succeed. To that end, our focus is on the tasks at hand and not on extraneous activities (e.g., texting, chatting, reading a newspaper, making phone calls, web surfing, etc.).
Inclusive Excellence is a fundamental part of the University of Arizona’s strategic plan and culture. As part of this initiative, the institution embraces and practices diversity and inclusiveness. These values are expected, respected and welcomed in this course.
Students are asked to refrain from disruptive conversations with people sitting around them during lecture. Students observed engaging in disruptive activity will be asked to cease this behavior. Those who continue to disrupt the class will be asked to leave lecture or discussion and may be reported to the Dean of Students.
Alternate language for those who want to restrict computers and laptops to an area of the classroom: Some learning styles are best served by using personal electronics, such as laptops and iPads. These devices can be distracting to other learners. Therefore, students who prefer to use electronic devices for note-taking during lecture should use one side of the classroom.
The UA Threatening Behavior by Students Policy prohibits threats of physical harm to any member of the University community, including to oneself. See http://policy.arizona.edu/education-and-student-affairs/threatening-behavior-students.
This course will, at times, contain material of a mature nature, which may include references to historical violence as collected and depicted in datasets and data visualizations. The instructor will provide advance notice when such materials will be used. Students are not automatically excused from interacting with such materials, but they are encouraged to speak with the instructor to voice concerns and to provide feedback.
It is already UA policy that class rosters are provided to instructors with a student’s preferred name. Students may share their preferred name and pronoun with members of the teaching staff and fellow students, as desired, and these gender identities and gender expressions will be honored in this course. As the course includes group work and in-class discussion, it is critical to create an educational environment of inclusion and mutual respect. In this class, to be inclusive of all gender identities and expressions, students will be referred to by their first or last names, the pronoun of their choice, or by default, the pronoun “they”.
Our goal in this classroom is that learning experiences be as accessible as possible. If you anticipate or experience physical or academic barriers based on disability, please let me know immediately so that we can discuss options. You are also welcome to contact the Disability Resource Center (520-621-3268) to establish reasonable accommodations. For additional information on the Disability Resource Center and reasonable accommodations, please visit http://drc.arizona.edu.
If you have reasonable accommodations, please plan to meet with me by appointment or during office hours to discuss accommodations and how my course requirements and activities may impact your ability to fully participate.
Please be aware that the accessible table and chairs in this room should remain available for students who find that standard classroom seating is not usable.
Students are encouraged to share intellectual views and discuss freely the principles and applications of course materials. However, graded work/exercises must be the product of independent effort unless otherwise instructed. Students are expected to adhere to the UA Code of Academic Integrity as described in the UA General Catalog. See http://deanofstudents.arizona.edu/academic-integrity/students/academic-integrity.
The University Libraries have some excellent tips for avoiding plagiarism, available at http://www.library.arizona.edu/help/tutorials/plagiarism/index.html.
The University is committed to creating and maintaining an environment free of discrimination; see http://policy.arizona.edu/human-resources/nondiscrimination-and-anti-harassment-policy.
Our classroom is a place where everyone is encouraged to express well-formed opinions and their reasons for those opinions. We also want to create a tolerant and open environment where such opinions can be expressed without resorting to bullying or discrimination of others.
UA Academic policies and procedures are available at http://catalog.arizona.edu/policies
Student Assistance and Advocacy information is available at http://deanofstudents.arizona.edu/student-assistance/students/student-assistance
Campus Health information may be found here: http://www.health.arizona.edu/counseling-and-psych-services
OASIS Sexual Assault and Trauma Services: http://oasis.health.arizona.edu/hpps_oasis_program.htm
Please see http://www.registrar.arizona.edu/personal-information/family-educational-rights-and-privacy-act-1974-ferpa?topic=ferpa for information on confidentiality of student records. This has concrete consequences for you if you give my name as a reference! In other words, if you intend to give my name as a reference, please contact me ahead of time so we can discuss.
Information contained in the course syllabus, other than the grade and absence policy, may be subject to change with advance notice, as deemed appropriate by the instructor.