This document describes the capstone semester project for the course. Students should work on a project in teams of 3 or 4 people. Expectations will be adjusted according to group size.

The idea of the project is to take the knowledge and background that you are learning this semester about Information Visualization and put it to good use in a new, creative effort. Part of the project is finding an interesting topic or domain to serve as the focus of your project. Think about a problem that people face in which there is an abundance of data and they must work with that data in order to come up with a solution or decide upon an approach. Identifying a good problem to work on with interesting data is half the battle!

While you are free to pick the topic/domain of your choice, I can suggest some possibilities. In particular, I will suggest some possible topics in class.

No matter what topic you choose, I am expecting a high-quality project. In particular, I'm seeking creative projects showcasing interesting ideas. A good project should consist of visualization designs and a software artifact that implements the designs. Interaction is key in information visualization, and it is difficult to understand the interaction issues in your project without a running system. I am explicitly NOT expecting user testing and evaluation. Ideally, I would like your efforts to be innovative and to result in some form of potential publication.

You will have four main milestones or deliverables. First, you must form your team and settle on a topic. Second, you will exhibit your working designs at a poster session about halfway through the term. Your poster should illustrate the state of your project including the design or designs you are developing. Third, you will make a final presentation about your project, and finally you will create a project write-up or article. Your project presentation should be professional and well prepared, and your final report should be of conference submission quality.

Important Milestones: