Homework 4: Visualizing Data with Many Eyes

The purpose of this assignment is to give you exposure to the visualization system Many Eyes, its visualization generation pipeline, and the visualization techniques it provides. We have uploaded a dataset about different types of whiskeys. You should create different visualizations in Many Eyes to help you understand and analyze that data. More specifically, we want you to answer the questions:

• Is there a relationship between age and score? How about age and price?
• Where do the best whiskey's come from? How about the most expensive?
• How old are the best ryes?
• Which brand is the most diverse?
• If I am deciding between an American Bourbon and a Scotch at about the same price, which should I buy?

Important: When you create a visualization, don't store it on the Many Eyes site and thus give it away to your other class colleagues. You can create visualizations without logging in as a registered user and saving the visualization. Try it out a few times.

What to turn in: For each question, turn in your answer and a screenshot of the visualization(s) you created to answer the question. At the end, provide an explicit critique of Many Eyes, its strengths and limitations. Remember, the critique should be in context of the guidelines we cover in class (did it let you do something easily? were some things really hard? etc.) This should just be a few paragraphs. Submit this before the start of class on the day it is due to T-Square. You do not need to bring a hard copy to class.

Grading: We will evaluate the quality of your answers and how you used the visualizations to help address these questions. We also will evaluate the thoughtfulness of your critique, especially with regards to the information we cover during class.