COMP5630

Course Title: 
Data Visualization
Credits: 
3
Core Course: 
yes
Course Aims: 

In this course we will study the art the science behind building visualizations with special focus on the techniques and algorithms for creating effective visualizations based on principles from graphic design, visual art, perceptual psychology, and cognitive science.

This course will develop the student’s capacity to build, critique and improve visualizations of data. Through readings and discussion of seminal work, students will learn the principles of graphical perception and the visual encoding of quantitative information and learn how to use these principles to evaluate an effective visualization. Through exposure to famous and infamous visualizations, you’ll explore what makes graphical representations of data successful or unsuccessful, and gain an appreciation of the different goals of visualization. A key part of the class will be developingvisualizations and critiquing other’s visualizations.

Learning Outcomes: 

On successful completion of the course, students should be able to:

  •   Deconstruct a graphic into the data displayed and how it is mapped to visual properties.

  •   Describe the order of accuracy of perceptual tasks and how this affects the choices made in

    constructing a visualization.

  •   Critique a visualization based on its purpose and use or abuse of perceptual principles.

  •   Suggest improvements of a visualization to enhance its effectiveness.

  •   Use color in visualization appropriately for the variable it is encoding.

  •   Create visualizations and explain visceral, behavioral characteristics and types of decisions that

    should be taken on the data.

  •   Combine tools for data manipulation and visualization, to collect, and clean data to create

    visualizations to answer questions of interest.

Syllabus: 
  1. Introduction: the purpose of visualization, the guiding principles of visualization, the deadly sins of bad graphics, describing graphics.
  2. Deconstructing and constructing graphics: parts of a graphic, continuous and discrete variables.
  3. Working with different types of data, dimensions, measure and spatial data/maps.
  4. Create interactive visualizations.
  5. Create visualizations which narrate a story by creating dashboards.
Course Assessment: 

The coursework will consist of an assignment and a project. The assignment expose students to different types of practical exercises and the project exposes students to applying their knowledge to a business problem that require visualization and their presentation skills.

Coursework - 60%

  •   Create Visualizations (30%)

  •   Project (30%)

    Final Examination (2 hours) - 40%
    Students will be required to pass both the coursework and the final examination to pass the course.