DATA REPRESENTATION

(1). FORENSIC DESIGN ASSESSMENTS

This task relates to a sequence of assessments that will be repeated across Chapters 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10. Select any example of a visualisation or infographic, maybe your own work or that of others. The task is to undertake a deep, detailed ‘forensic’ like assessment of the design choices made across each of the five layers of the chosen visualisation’s anatomy. In each case your assessment is only concerned with one design layer at a time.

For this task, take a close look at the data representation choices:

1. Start by identifying all the charts and their types
2. How suitable do you think the chart type choice(s) are to display the data? If they are not, what do you think they should have been?
3. Are the marks and, especially, the attributes appropriately assigned and accurately portrayed?
4. Go through the set of ‘Influencing factors’ from the latter section of the book’s chapter to help shape your assessment and to possibly inform how you might tackle this design layer differently
5. Are there any data values/statistics presented in table/raw form that maybe could have benefited from a more visual representation?

(2). CHART VOCABULARY: CAPABILITIES

Evaluate your ability to potentially create as many as possible of the chart types presented in the Chapter 6 chart gallery. Go through each chart assigning a score based on the points system (0, 1, 2, 3) described in the ‘Influencing factors’ section at the end of the chapter.

(3). CHART VOCABULARY: THINKING

Building on your data familiarisation and editorial thinking work over the past two chapters, pick one of the subjects you have been looking at and follow one of three different data representation task tracks, referring to the book’s chart type gallery in each case:

1. Identify a chart type that could be used to display the different editorial perspectives you identified in your brainstorming activity of chapter 4
2. Identify as many chart types as possible that could show something interesting about the subject in general, though maybe not confined to the data you have been looking at
3. Force yourself to identify at least 2 chart types from each of the 5 classifying chart families (CHRTS) that could portray different interesting editorial perspectives about this subject, starting with the data you have and then considering what additional data you would need to fulfil this activity