Assignment #1: Inspirational Visualization Images

We are surrounded by examples of visualization in every form of media in our everyday lives. An effective visualization will quickly and accurately convey important information in a compact manner that is easy to understand, interpret, and analyze. In contrast, a poor quality visualization can be confusing, hard to interpret, or even misleading.

Why are you interested in taking this course, "Interactive Visualization"? What visualizations are particularly inspiring to you? Find two example visualization images -- one example that you think is a great visualization and one example that you think needs significant revision to be effective. Please limit yourself to single static image visualizations for this assignment.

For each example:

• Document the author of the visualization (formal & detailed bibliographic citation).

• A short paragraph describing the context, original media format, target audience, and purpose of the visualization.

• A longer paragraph with your analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of the visualization. What generalizations can you draw from this example about what makes a compelling, high-quality visualization? How specifically could this visualization be improved?

Your assignment should be formatted as either:

• plaintext with separate image files (.png or .jpg) or links (URLs) to the original image source, or

• .pdf with embedded images.

How to Submit

• Log on to LMS and upload the two images and your writeup to the "Assignment #1 Inspirational Visualization Images" discussion.

• Look at your fellow students' posts for this assignment. Post thoughtful comments on the posts of at least 2 other students. (Let's try to spread the comments out so that every post has at least one response!)

• Send email to the instructor if you cannot access the course page in LMS.