Information Visualisation

The course aims to give an understanding in how information can be designed and presented to provide efficient and effective knowledge transfer and decision-making. The course provides an overview of the human sensory and cognitive systems, and focus on how different designs of information affect understanding. Screen based as well as other types of interactive interfaces as means to efficiently and unambiguously present information are discussed. The course is structured based on the sensory and perceptive human systems like vision, memory, spatial ability and visual thinking. Base material is the course literature and current scientific papers in relevant areas.

Knowledge

The candidate can

• show the difference between well-known information visualization techniques, including the pros and cons they have in respect to types of data, functionality, adaptability, and scalability
• show how the cognitive and perceptive abilities of humans affect the possibilities of information visualization.

Skills

The candidate can

• create concepts for information visualizations taking into consideration specific data sets, users, technical platforms, and use context.
• iteratively develop visualizations from early non-functional sketches through mock-ups to functional prototype making use of user feedback.

General competence

The candidate can

• compare different interactive visualization techniques to evaluate their feasibility for both generic and specific use
• analyze and provide creative criticism on specific solutions to visualize information.

The course contains a number of lectures, a literature seminar, twopractical exercises, a project work and a written examination. The exercises and projects are done in groups.

Literature seminar: One or more students will be responsible for one chapter of the course book each and orally present the most important features as well as suggest a number of questions for the written examination.

Practical exercises: Three week-long exercises will be given which are to be solved in groups of 2-3 students. The results of the exercises will be discussed in class. Project work: One larger project work based on some current research question solving a practical visualization design problem will be assigned to groups of 2-3 students. The results will be presented in a mini-thesis, a scientific poster, as well as an oral poster presentation.

Written examination: The theoretical content of the course literature and the lectures will be examined in a 3 hrs long written examination.

This course is offered to exchange students. Language of instruction is English.