Project 2 (InfoVis)
This project is concerned with the comprehensive process of visualizing real-world information. You will identify some information that you are personally interested in and develop software and other procedures to acquire, parse, filter, mine, represent, refine, and interact with your data — while keeping in mind essential questions about what information is worth visualizing, what makes it worth visualizing, and how your visualization functions to produce new knowledge and/or make an impact in culture.
Details about this Project’s deadlines and deliverables:
- Tuesday, January 31:
Looking Outwards for visualization. In a blog post, identify two information visualization projects which you admire. (See flowingdata.com, etc. etc. – there are other blogs and resources on the course page and at patrick’s links) The projects don’t have to be related to what you want to do. - Thursday, February 2:
Project 2 Sketch due. Have, ready to show, a sketch (or perhaps even a working prototype) of your project. This is also an especially good deadline by which to have finished collecting or obtaining your data. Your sketch/prototype will not be collected, but we will, in groups, look at what you have. - Tuesday, February 7 and Thursday, February 9:
(1) YOUR PROJECT.
Your project should be described in a post on the course website. It should include documentation in the form of screenshots, videos, and if possible, a zip containing the project itself. Your project post should include a written narrative about your project: where the idea came from, how you obtained the data, a few similar projects that you drew inspiration from or improved upon, some discoveries you made along the way, a self-critique (what you think succeeds, what could be improved), etc. Categorize your post with the category “Project2″.
(2) YOUR PRESENTATION.
We can expect to have about two dozen presentations. That’s a lot. To make this many presentations in 3 hours (with a break!), we will need to keep to strict limits on timing. For this reason, all of your presentations will be limited to 7 minutes. You can use the renowned and wonderful “Pecha Kucha” presentation format
To help you prepare, I have created some templates for Pecha-Kucha slide presentations for both Keynote and Powerpoint:
Even if you don’t use the templates, you still have to keep your presentation to 7 minutes. I strongly encourage you to rehearse your presentation! Upload your slide presentation as part of your blog post.
Seven minutes is a nice tidy length for presentations, but (sadly) we won’t have time for rich discussions about twenty projects! For this reason, we will use a PiratePad (a shared notepad) to collaboratively author feedback for the presenting students. Make sure to bring your laptop so you can add your comments in real-time.