Research Presentations

by Christian Swinehart

Each student will select a data visualization person, topic, theme, technology, etc. to thoroughly research and report on for the rest of the class. You will become an expert in this subject and explore some of the main ideas and concepts behind the research topic you've selected.

Some questions to think about:

  • What is the style/use/purpose of your subject?
  • What does this subject do well? What do they do poorly? What do you like/dislike?
  • How does this subject connect to other readings and discussions within the course?

You should bring supporting materials that will help the rest of the class understand and contextualize your subject in the form of images, quotes, videos, gifs, maps, code, etc. Create a PDF presentation (resolution 1280 x 720px) and commit the file to the 0.research directory of your fork of the git repo before your assigned week. Name your file using the scheme firstname_researchSubject.pdf.

Link videos or websites directly from the .pdf and be prepared to present on your subject for about 20 minutes. Prepare follow-up questions for the class. You will be evaluated on how you describe the main concepts to your peer students in adequate detail, how you connect the topic to other readings and discussions we've had in class, your supporting materials and the quality of your questions for the class within the given time frame.

Look over the potential topics listed below (or propose one of your own devising), then sign up for a topic and time-slot using this google doc.

The Tufte Canon

The Visual Display of Quantitative Information
Envisioning Information
Visual Explanations

From History

Jacques Bertin
Oliver Byrne
W.E.B. Du Bois
Charles Joseph Minard
Otto Neurath
William Playfair

Contemporary

Mike Bostock / D3
Catalogtree
Muriel Cooper / VLW
Amanda Cox / Upshot
Nicholas Felton
Forensic Architecture
Ben Fry / Fathom / Processing
Tahir Hemphill
Mark Lombardi
Giorgia Lupi / Accurat
Lev Manovich
Cathy O’Neil
Hans Rosling / Gapminder
Jer Thorp / O.C.R.
Washington Post graphics dept.
Richard Saul Wurman