CS 448B Visualization

Stanford CS course on data visualization techniques (Winter 2020)

Location: Skilling 80
Time: MW 4:30-5:50pm


Final Project

Project Proposal Due: Wednesday Feb 19, 2020 by 4:30pm
Final Presentation Due: Monday Mar 16, 2020 7-10pm
Final Code and Writeup Due: Friday Mar 27, 2020 by 11:59pm

Purpose

The purpose of the final project is to provide hands-on experience either (1) developing a visualization research project or (2) analyzing a data set and producing visual explainer for it.

  1. Research projects involve making a novel contribution to the domain of visualization and typically include developing a software artifact or a user study/evaluation of a visualization technique.

  2. Data analysis projects involve analyzing a data set that has not previously been analyzed extensively, and producing an interactive visual explainer of the most interesting findings you uncover in the data set (in the style of the pudding.cool or the New York Times).

Projects will be carried out by a team of up to 3 people. For research projects the final deliverable will be an implementation of the proposed solution and a paper written in the format of a conference paper submission. For data analysis projects the final implementation deliverable is an article containing at least 3 different interactive charts with accompanying text written in the form of a journalistic article and a paper that describes the key design decisions you made in producing the interactive visualizations.

The first step is for you to identify the type of project (research or data analysis) and the specific topic you will work on. We would like you to write these up as a project proposal which is due on Wednesday Feb 19, 2020 by 4:30pm. Each group will then be responsible for presenting the project in draft form to the teaching staff in the 10th week of the quarter. This design review will give you a chance to obtain feedback on the work and prepare for the final presentation which will take place on Monday Mar 16, 2020 7-10pm. The final project code and writeup is due on Friday Mar 27, 2020 by 11:59pm.

Suggested Project Topics

To get you started in thinking about project ideas we have a number of final project suggestions for you to consider. These are roughly grouped into research project ideas and data analysis project ideas.

In addition, Edward Tufte’s site i and particularly his question/answer area is full of ideas that would make good class projects. If you are interested in conducting human subject experiments, Stephen Few has put together a collection of possible questions to explore.

Deliverables/Schedule

Project Proposal Due: Wednesday Feb 19, 2020 by 4:30pm

As a first step you should create a project proposal that includes the names of the members of your group and a short (1 to 2 paragraph) description of the visualization research project or data analysis project you plan to work on. You should submit the proposal via Canvas.

Upload your final project proposal to Canvas.

Design Review and Feedback (in class 3/9 and 3/11)

In the 10th week of the quarter we (the teaching staff) will review your project to provide feedback on the project and help you prepare for the final presentation. It is fine if your project is not yet in a fully “complete” state, but by this point you should have made substantive progress, including working (if still rough) prototypes of your main visualizations and interactions.

You should prepare a short presentation of your work focusing on a demo. Our class sessions on Mon 3/9 and Wed 3/11 will be used for design review appointments with your team and the teaching staff.

Final Project Presentation Due: Monday Mar 16, 2020 7-10pm

Due to COVID19 we will no longer be holding a final presentation session.

We will hold [a public presentation of the final projects]() on Mon Mar 16, from 7pm to 10pm. The presentations will give you a chance to show off the hard work you put into your project, and to learn about the projects of your peers. Be prepared to give a 5-10 minute oral presentation. You should focus you presentation on a demo of your project. The presentation should include:

  • Problem: A clear statement of the problem or data set your project addresses.

  • Motivation: An explanation of why the problem or data set is interesting.

  • Approach: A description of the techniques/algorithms/interactive charts you used to solve the problem or to analyze and visualize your data set.

  • Demo: Demo of the tool or article you created. Explainer articles should contain at least 3 different interactive visualizations.

Submission: Submit the final presentation slides via Canvas.

Final Project Code and Writeup Due: Friday Mar 27, 2020 by 11:59pm

The final deliverables include:

  • Code: an implementation of your project. If your project is an explainer or you developed a website as a key part of your research, please also post a link to a running version of your site. If you have questions about how to serve your site please talk to us right away.

  • Paper: a 6-8 page paper describing your work. In the case of a research project your paper should be in the form of a conference paper submission. (Please use the CHI paper template). The paper should include the following sections:

  • Introduction - An explanation of the problem and the motivation for solving it.

  • Methods - An explanation of the techniques and algorithms you used to solve the problem. A description of the design decisions you made in doing the data analysis and producing the explainer.

  • Results - The visualizations your system produces and data to help evaluate your approach. For example you may include running times, or the time users typically spend generating a visualization using your system. For a data analysis/explainer project you should include 1 screen shot the includes a representative portion of the page and briefly describe the major topics covered in the explainer.

  • Discussion - What has the audience learned about visualization from your work?

  • Future Work - A description of how your system could be extended.

Submission: You should submit your final deliverables (access to a running executable and a zip file of the code, or a link to a github repository as well as a pdf of the paper) via Canvas.