Final deliverable due December 13 CS 7450 - Information Visualization Fall 2011

Semester Project

This document describes the semester project for the course. Students should work on a project in teams of 2-4 people. (Arguments will be entertained for a single person project, but in general, this is discouraged.) 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. A real key to the project, however, is to select a data set that people will find interesting and intriguing. Even better would be to select a data set with a clearly identified set of "users" or "analysts" who care deeply about that data. Select a topic that people want to know more about! I cannot emphasize strongly enough the importance of your topic and data set. Think about the suite of data visualizations that the NY Times has created over the past few years, a few examples of which are listed below:

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 are free to choose any software development environment and graphics/visualization support library that you want in order to help build your system. Consider developing a system that is web-deployable so that your system can be shown to everyone in the world!

You will have four main milestones or deliverables. First, you must form your team and settle on a topic. Second, you will submit a detailed design document about halfway through the term. Third, you will give a demonstration of your project to the instructor and TA during final exams week. Finally, you will produce a short video (8 minutes or less) that explains your system and shows it in action. This video can be accompanied by a short descriptive document also.

Important Milestones:

  • Sep 15 - Initial project description. One page document listing project members and topic to be addressed.
  • Oct 20 - Project design ideas. This should be an analysis of the problem along with a variety of visualization ideas and designs. Show a sample of the data and describe why someone would care about analyzing or understanding this data. Describe potential users and their characteristics as well. Finally, show mock-ups and/or storyboards of different visualization ideas that your group has developed. Be creative!
  • Dec 13 - Project demonstration. Each team will meet with the instructor and TA to demo their system and describe what they have done.
  • Dec 13 - System video. A video illustrating system use and capabilities is due. This can be accomapnied by a short report as well.

    Grading: We will evaluate the overall quality of your project, including all milestones and components. The midway project design document will be worth 40% of the total grade on the project. It is important that you make progress on the project quickly. This is doubly beneficial as it allows more time for your implementation.

    The following questions will be important during that evaluation process.