Courses/Computer Science/CPSC 203/CPSC 203 2008Winter L03/CPSC 203 2008Winter L03 Lectures/Lecture 9

Lecture 9

Today we recap the visual design principles from last lecture, introduce the notions of an "information dashboard" and "exploratory data analysis", and use these concepts to look at Assignment 1, using the "Who Are We" survey data.

• House Keeping
  • MIDTERM: Tuesday February 26th -- Note I'll post some practice questions on BB end of this week for study during Reading Week.
  • PREREADING: Chapter 11: Databases and Information Systems to prepare for next week
  • Participatory Excercises and Peer Review
  • Assignment 1 will be introduced Today, and basis of our class exercise.
  • Thursday: We'll discuss last 15 minutes to discussing Midterm format, and provide some study hints.

• Todays Topics
  • Recap Visual Information Design, introduce information dashboards.
  • Introduce Exploratory Data Analysis through several simple examples.
  • Introduce Assignment 1 -- and "Dashboard" in-class exercise.

Lecture Glossary

• Outlier -- An observation that is numerically distant from the rest of the data.
• Residual -- the difference between the value predicted by a model, and the value actually observed.
• Exploratory Data Analysis -- Exploratory Data Analysis was essentially defined in Tukey's 1977 book of the same name. Data are examined and clues uncovered, to generate hypotheses about the data. You could consider this akin to detective work. Tukey stressed in particular visual methods to look for groups, outliers, residuals that show further pattern. He contrasted EDA with "Confirmatory Data Analysis" (see below). The core idea in EDA is to look at the data for suggestive patterns (often visually detectable patterns).
• Confirmatory Data Analysis -- Confirmatory data analysis is basically judicious in nature. We have a hypothesis (which may have been originated in an EDA stage). We have some data we believe is a critical test of the hypotheses (not the same data as used in EDA). We then attempt top determine the "degree" to which our hypothesis is supported or refuted.

Information Dashboard Exercise

This exercise prepares you for Assignment 1. In class each group will design a preliminary Information Dashboard on paper, based on the "Who Are We" survey data. Selected groups will then come to the front and sketch their Dashboard.

TIME: 20 minutes to design; 20 minutes to discuss.

1. Break into groups.
2. Design a preliminary information dashboard with 3 charts. (Don't worry about numerical details). Put a group name, or your individual names on the page.
3. Put a small caption below each chart.
4. Hand to front after 20 minutes.
5. I will pick 3-5 groups to come to the front and sketch out their preliminary designs.
6. Finally, we will review some solutions from previous semesters, to give you an idea of what your TAs will be looking for.