Information Visualization

Instructor: Mark Derthick

05-899 F

12 units

Computer-based information visualization, or "infovis", centers around helping people explore or explain data by designing interactive software that exploits the properties of the human perceptual system. The central design challenge in infovis is designing a cognitively useful spatial mapping of a dataset that is not inherently spatial. There are many possible visual encodings, only a fraction of which are helpful for a given task. It draws on the intellectual history of several traditions, including computer graphics, human-computer interaction, cognitive psychology, semiotics, graphic design, statistical graphics, cartography, and art. The synthesis of relevant ideas from these fields with new methodologies and techniques made possible by interactive computation are critical for helping people keep pace with the torrents of data confronting them.

Prerequisites: HCII graduate standing or permission of the instructor.

Topics

• Interaction Strategies: overview+detail, multiple views, focus+context, zooming, aggregation, filtering and querying, lens, data flow, information-centric, end-user construction, automatic construction, visual overviews
• 1D: timelines, text, sliders, walls, books, music 
• 2D: zoom&pan, overview+detail, space-scale, lens, bifocal, distortion 
• 3D: navigation, volumes 
• Hierarchies: node&link, space filling, fisheye 
• Networks and Web: node&link, matrix, hierarchization
• Document collections: vectorization, clustering, maps and layouts, interrelationships 
• Workspaces: task management, infosphere, window management 
• Evaluation: empirical user studies, usability, ethnographic 
• Theory: info foraging, taxonomies, navigation, spatial visualization ability 
• Miscellaneous: implementation, systems, data formats, application areas, 2D vs. 3D, multiple views vs. distortion

Evaluation

Each student will have to present and lead the discussion on a number of papers. Presentations will be judged on the basis of technical accuracy, clarity and thoroughness, and ability to place each paper in proper perspective to other work. There will also be small design / evaluation projects assigned as homework. Students will work on a larger hands-on project / conference paper in small groups. A public poster & demo session for all the projects will be held on the last day of class.

The grade awarded will be based on

•Quality of the presentations (20%)

•Project execution, paper, & demo/poster (50%)

•Homeworks (20%)

•Class participation (10%)

There will be no exams in the course.

Faculty

Mark Derthick

Office: NSH 3609

Phone: x8-8812

Email: mad@cs.cmu.edu

In addition, there will be some guest lectures.

Textbook:

Card, Stuart K, Mackinlay, Jock D, Shneiderman, Ben,

Readings in Information Visualization, Morgan Kaufmann, 1999.

Other helpful books:

Ware, C.

Information Visualization: Perception for Design. Morgan Kaufman. 2000.

Robert Spence

Information Visualization, Addison-Wesley, 2001

A reading list and associated papers will also be handed out.