Due September 27 CS 7450 - Information Visualization Fall 2011

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 results from the Tour de France bicycle race. 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:
  1. How has the average speed of the winner changed over the years?
  2. Why?
  3. What country had the most occurrences of its riders finishing first and second in the same year? How many times was that?
  4. Characterize how different countries have dominated the Tour and how this has changed over time.

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.

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. This should just be a few paragraphs.

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.