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Cognitive Science 220: Information Visualization Seminar

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Cognitive Science 220: Information Visualization Seminar" Winter 2011" Cogsci 220: Information Visualization Seminar " Goals" •# Introduction to field, selected research areas, people, and labs" •# Exposure to computational methods and tools" •# Experience writing an NSF-style proposal or doing a information visualization project and documenting it in the form of a conference paper. Cogsci grad students can count as either an issues or a methods course depending on what you do." Approach" •# Read two of Tufte$s books as a gentle introduction to the field of information visualization" •# Gentle introduction to visualization software" •# Find a visualization area you are interested in, hopefully useful for your current or future research, read selected literature in that area, and write a proposal or document a project" •# Along the way share your project idea, plans, and the best of the associated literature with the seminar " hci.ucsd.edu/hollan" hci.ucsd.edu/hollan" Cogsci 220 Class Wiki: cogsci220.wetpaint.com" Brief Introductions" " NSF on Thursday" " Schedule for first two weeks" " First assignment" Alternative I: Critique a Good and Bad Visualization" The use of visualization is pervasive in the media: explanatory diagrams in magazines, graphs describing the projected impact of a new state budget, new experimental data plotted against theoretical expectations, etc. In each case, the author of the visualization tries to convey a point of view by emphasizing some aspects of the data while toning down other aspects. The result can vary widely, from informative to misleading." In this alternative of the assignment, pick out two examples, one good and one bad visualization. We will discuss these in class next week. Be prepared to quickly explain the visualizations. No information visualization text or paper should be used. Go to original sources: a textbook, science magazine (Nature, Science, Scientific American, ...), magazine or newspaper (Newsweek, The Economist, NY Times, USA Today, ...). Once you have selected a good and a bad example, post them and a discussion of them on the wiki as described below. You discussion should include the following:" " Explanation: Describe the story behind the visualization. What does the visualization depict and who is the intended audience? The explanation should be brief but containsufficient detail to allow one to understand the goal of the visualization." Deconstruction: Here you should deconstruct the visualization. What data is represented, size of data set and how representative, what mapping are used? What is datamodel, image model, and encodings are used? Are there uninformative elements?" Critique:Is the visualization effective? Does it communicate the data? Why or why not? Does the visualization uphold or violate any important design principles? Keepin mind not only perceptual and presentation issues but also the expected background knowledge and cultural conventions of the intended audience. Howwould you change the visualization to improve it?" " This assignment is used in many information visualization classes to encourage students to start to think critically and analytically about visualizations. The original formulation comes from a class Pat Hanrahan taught at Stanford. See bottom of web page for submission details." " Alternative II: Design a Visualization" In this alternative of the assignment, you will design a visualization for a small data set and provide a rigorous rationale for your design choices. You should in theory be ready to explain the contribution of every pixel in the display. You are free to use any graphics or charting tool you please--including drafting it by hand. However, you may find it most instructive to create the chart from scratch using a graphics API of your choice." " Recently, a fair amount of press heralded the prediction that the Android mobile OS will soon become the number 2 smartphone operating system. Imagine that it is your job to assist a product manager in a technology company. You've been asked to create a simple means to help her compare the sales of Android phones (both actual and predicted) to the performance of other smartphones. For her immediate purposes, she isn't deeply interested in the raw number of units sold or moneymade; she primarily wants to know how the competitive landscape may be shifting. The number of smart phone units sold (in millions) by operating system, 2007-2011 (2010-2011 are projected numbers) are available form Gartner. Here is a comma separated list of the data." " Your task is to design a static (i.e., single image) visualization that you believe effectively communicates the data and provide a short write-up describing your design. While you must use the data set given, note that you are free to transform the data as you see fit. As different visualizations can emphasize different aspects of a data set, you should document what aspects of the data you are attempting to most effectively communicate. In short, what story (or stories) are you trying to tell? Just as important, also note which aspects of the data might be obscured or down-played due toyour visualization design." " In your write-up, you should provide a rigorous rationale for your design decisions. Document the visual encodings you used and why they are appropriate for the data. These decisions include the choice of visualization type, size, color, scale, and other visual elements, as well as the use of sorting or other data transformations. How do these decisions facilitate effective communication?" General Advice for Students Why do so few people make significant contributions? What is the difference between those who have impact and those who don’t? One factor is expectations If you think you can’t almost certainly you won’t Prepare Yourself The time to start is now Do what you love (that’s easy) and love what you do (that’s the challenge) Don’t worry about how intrinsically smart you are or anyone else is To do significant things you have to neglect other things Be careful about your commitments but when you commit really do it Take time to think important thoughts Refuse to let the urgent drive out the important Be careful about who you spend time with Advice for Grad Students Research Requires Courage Research Involves Risks Social and emotional Risks to reputation and pride High probability any particular project, especially if challenging, will fail Transitioning from student to independent researcher A difficult transition from being a student to being a research contributor Think of yourself not as a graduate student but as a young researcher in your field (the wider context is key to making wise decisions) Reputations start early Learn how to balance multiple things and deal with ambiguity You have more time and flexibility now than you likely ever will again Be smart in using your time Get to know people in your field (email, conferences, talks, visits, …) Develop a Research Portfolio Your time is the investment currency Work on important problems What makes a problem important? Portfolio should be a mix of differing risk/payoff projects Adjusting the mix " Research Advice" Goal is to have impact! " Feedback is key: seek out and value thoughtful critics! " Do real stuff: make sure you are solving problems some one (especially you!) cares about! " Stay focused on questions you deeply care about! " Become methodologically sophisticated and know the literature! " Develop research taste: for selecting problems, how to attack them, and how to communicate results! " Your real legacy will be not only you papers but your influence of your colleagues, students, and others" Science is a Social Activity Doing" Collaborate, collaborate, collaborate! " Talking" Importance of both formal and informal interactions (Hinton, DER)" From water cooler chats to lab meetings to classes and seminars to conference talks " TAing and teaching are important opportunities" Look for opportunities to give talks (both formal and informal)! " Writing" A constant activity and continual developing skill (Knuth, DAN)" Set aside regular time to write" A new challenge is learning how to write proposals" Refuse to let the urgent drive out the important Always remember:" it has to be fun too" Consider Some Opportunities" Lab$s interest in visualizing time-based multimodal data and ChronoViz software" " Interest in visualization of writing or programming activity" " Work with HIPerSpace Wall" " Develop real expertise with a visualization toolkit or software environment" " Explore visualization techniques that can help with your current or future research" World#s Highest-Resolution Scientific Display System: Calit2 HIPerSpace Wall" Seventy 30” displays, arranged in fourteen columns of five displays each. Each 'tile' has a resolution of 2,560 by 1,600 pixels – bringing the combined, visible resolution to 35,640 by 8,000 pixels, or more than 286.7 million pixels in all. (Almost 1 pixel per each of the 300 million US residents)" ! " Cooliris on HIPerSpace Wall" Visualization" Definition (www.oed.com) " " 1.# The action or fact of visualizing; the power or process of forming a mental picture or vision of something not actually present to the sight; a picture thus formed. " 2.# The action or process of rendering visible" Visualization" “Transformation of the symbolic into the geometric” [McCormick et al. 1987]" " “... finding the artificial memory that best supports our natural means of perception.” [Bertin 1967] " " “The use of computer-generated, interactive, visual representations
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