The amount and complexity of information produced in science, engineering, business, and everyday human activity is increasing at staggering rates. The goal of this course is to expose you to visual representation methods and techniques that increase the understanding of complex data. Visualization for data discovery and communication is an important part of the data science pipeline. Good visualizations not only present a visual interpretation of data, but do so by improving comprehension, communication, and decision making.
In this course you will learn about the fundamentals of perception, the theory of visualization, good design practices for visualization, and how to develop your own web-based visualizations using HTML5, CSS, JavaScript, SVG, and D3.
The course begins by bootstrapping your web development skills, moves on to fundamentals of perception, introduces data types you will encounter, and then focuses on visualization techniques and methods for a broad range of data types. An integral component of the course are regular design critiques and redesigns that will hone your skills in understanding, critiquing and developing visualization techniques.
The course is offered in the fall term 2018 at the University of Utah in two variants: CS-5630 for undergraduates and CS-6630 for graduate students, with a special section of CS-6630 (002) designated for data certificate students. Classes start on Tuesday, August 21. All classes are streamed live and archived online.
Instructor
Alexander Lex,
E-Mail: alex@sci.utah.edu, please do not send me canvas messages.
Phone: (801) 585-0327
Office: WEB 3887
See the schedule for office hours.
Teaching Assistants
Jen Rogers, PhD student, Visualization / Computer Science
Sam Quinan, PhD student, Graphics & Visualization
Mengjiao Han, PhD student, Visualization & Graphics
See the schedule for office hours.
Logistics
Lectures: Tuesday and Thursday 2:00-3:20 pm, L101 WEB
Labs: By announcement on Wednesdays, 6:00-7:30 pm, L110 WEB
Live Video: YouTube Channel
Archived Video: YouTube Playlist
Grades: Canvas
Discussion: Slack - please join with your utah.edu address and use your real name.
Previous Versions of this Class
If you want to look ahead in the class (in particular regarding slides) you can browse previous versions of the class:
Utah CS-5630/CS5660 2017
Utah CS-5630/CS5660 2016
Utah CS-5630/CS5660 2015
This class is based on two different courses:
Harvard CS 171 2015
Instructor: Alexander Lex
http://cs171.org/2015/
Utah CS-5630/CS5660 2014
Instructor: Miriah Meyer
http://www.sci.utah.edu/~miriah/cs6630/