Data Visualisation

Overview

This unit aims to instruct students on the principles of data visualisation and good design practices. Students will explore a wide range of visualisation idioms and develop the ability to create visualisations that empower users to understand real-world data sets. Students will also develop project management skills, professional ethics, and academic writing during their project and research paper.

Unit learning outcomes

Students who successfully complete this unit will be able to:

1. Critically evaluate data visualisations and propose improvements based on an understanding of human perception and cognition and data visualisation design principles
2. Effectively communicate and reflect on the design process for a comprehensive visualisation
3. Create interactive data visualisations using real-world data sets, maintaining professional ethics by ethical use of data, the choice of visualisation idioms, reasoning behind design decisions and project management task
4. Apply a structured design process and ethical writing to create effective visualisations within a research context

Teaching methods

Hawthorn

Assessment

Content

• Introduction to data visualisation
• Brief history of data visualisation
• Data visualisation design guidelines, graphical integrity
• Visual variables: marks and channels
• Visualisation critique
• Analysis of user tasks in visualisation usage
• Data sets and types
• Interaction: Manipulating view, Filtering
• Data visualisation idioms
• Colour theory
• Human perception and cognition
• Interactive design visualisation
• Introduction to Ethics and Data Visualisation Research
• Introduction to the visualisation tools and practice