CS 7450, Information Visualization, Spring 2005

CS 7450
Information Visualization

Spring 2005, TuTh 3:05-4:25
Management Bldg. 223

Instructor: John Stasko
staskoccgatechedu; 342 Technology Square Research Building; 404-894-5617; Office Hours:
    Mon 3-4:30pm, CoC Commons
    Tue 2-3pm, Thu 1-2pm, TSRB 342
    or by appt.
Teaching Assistant: James Eagan
eaganj+cs7450ccgatechedu; 343A Technology Square Research Building; 404-385-2447; Office Hours:
    Tue 4:30-5:30pm, TSRB 343A
    Wed 3-4pm, TSRB 343A
    or by appt.

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General Information

Information visualization is a new research area that focuses on the use of visualization techniques to help people understand and analyze data. While fields such as scientific visualization involve the presention of data that has some physical or geometric correspondence, information visualization focuses on abstract data without such correspondences such as symbolic, tabular, networked, hierarchical, or textual information sources.

The objectives of the course are

Learn the principles involved in information visualization
Learn about the variety of existing techniques and systems in information visualization
Develop skills in critiquing different visualization techniques as applied to particular tasks
Learn how to evaluate visualization systems
Gain a background that will aid the design of new, innovative visualizations

The course will follow a graduate seminar style with much discussion of assigned readings, as well as viewing of videos and hands-on experience with research and commercial information visualization tools.

Text: Our primary text will be Information Visualization by Robert Spence, ACM Press, 2000. We also will use Envisioning Information by Edward Tufte, Graphics Press, 1990. Readings from the textbooks will be supplemented by selected other articles that will be distributed in class.

Additional books that will be useful are Readings in Information Visualization, Using Visualization to Think by Stuart Card, Jock Mackinlay and Ben Shneiderman, Morgan Kaufmann, 1999 (a collection of seminal papers in the field supplemented by additional descriptive material) and The Visual Display of Quantitative Information by Edward Tufte, Graphics Press, 1983.

Grading will be based on short homeworks, assignments involving use and analysis of some information visualization tools, a semester project, and a final exam. The weight of each assignment can be found on the assignments page.

Students from a variety of disciplines are invited to take the course, but some prior background in human-computer interaction will be helpful. Programming experience is not required but will be useful. Project ideas not involving serious programming will be available.